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Supreme Discomfort: The Divided Soul of Clarence Thomas | 
 enlarge | Authors: Kevin Merida, Michael Fletcher
Publisher: Broadway
Category: Book
List Price: $15.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  15 reviews
Sales Rank: 342458
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 448
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 7.8 x 5.2 x 1.2
ISBN: 0767916360
Dewey Decimal Number: 340
EAN: 9780767916363
ASIN: 0767916360
Publication Date: April 8, 2008
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Product Description
There is no more powerful, detested, misunderstood African American in our public life than Clarence Thomas. Supreme Discomfort: The Divided Soul of Clarence Thomas is a haunting portrait of an isolated and complex man, savagely reviled by much of the black community, not entirely comfortable in white society, internally wounded by his passage from a broken family and rural poverty in Georgia, to elite educational institutions, to the pinnacle of judicial power. His staunchly conservative positions on crime, abortion, and, especially, affirmative action have exposed him to charges of heartlessness and hypocrisy, in that he is himself the product of a broken home who manifestly benefited from racially conscious admissions policies.
Supreme Discomfort is a superbly researched and reported work that features testimony from friends and foes alike who have never spoken in public about Thomas before—including a candid conversation with his fellow justice and ideological ally, Antonin Scalia. It offers a long-overdue window into a man who straddles two different worlds and is uneasy in both—and whose divided personality and conservative political philosophy will deeply influence American life for years to come.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 10 more reviews...
 A compartmentalized, angry man August 10, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
The authors show how Thomas is divided to the point of having a compartmentalized personality. This is especially, but by no means limited to, his use of sexual language, as witnessed by the Anita Hill case.
Re that, they talked with several moderate GOP Senators who supported Thomas and now indicate they regret it. And, without going into the confirmation hearings as much as Mayer/Abramson, it seems clear that, if Biden had rolled the dice differently and had Angela Wright testify, Thomas would never have been confirmed.
That said, it seems Thomas has had many a chip on his shoulder long before we got to 1991. The authors do a good job of pointing out that many of these chips are directed toward certain sub-groups within black America, based on skin tone, class or money within black America. I'm sure they were able to handle this better than white authors could.
That said, contrary to 1- and 2-star reviewers, this book is in no way a hatchet job. As for Thomas' judicial philosophy, it's clear they're not commenting at all on it one way or the other. They're not even commenting on whether he's "right" or "wrong" to spin his childhood, and its various influences, the way he does.
At this stage in Thomas' life, this is probably the best, most well-rounded biography we can expect.
What I learned from this is that Thomas seems fueled by anger more than anything else; I sometimes wonder if the thin skin he can exhibit is a shell that's about to implode. Beyond that, he seems quite conscious of the compartmentalized subselves he has, with different ones presented to different people.
Beyond my disagreement with his political stances, I feel kind of sorry for him.
 Supreme Disappointment June 29, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
In Supreme Discomfort the authors Merida and Fletcher try hard to create a biography of Justice Thomas based on interviews with childhood associates, former classmates, extended family, and former law clerks, in addition to crafting a social science construct to his background. However, using this approach produces a book that tells the reader less about the purported subject than about how he is viewed. More effort is spent trying to put Thomas into a category of being angry and resentful of slights than seeking to flesh out the nuances of this very complicated figure.
The authors delve into the fact that Thomas is reviled as an Uncle Tom in the black community, but do little to explain either Thomas' views or his antagonists other than a for or against basis. In a late chapter they bring Henry Louis Gates Jr. into the discussion to argue that affirmative action is good, but do not look at Thomas' writings and speeches where he argues for an approach based on merit and economic factors over race.
The authors seem to want to stress what they think Thomas should be, rather than examine their subject's own views. There is more of a discussion of Justice Scalia's pizza preferences than the nuances of Textual Originalism that in many cases leads both justices down different paths. Jan Crawford Greenberg does a much better job looking at what the justices actually do and their legal philosophies in Supreme Conflict.
The narrative flow of the text is somewhat choppy going forward and backward chronologically without warning, as if the two authors were writing different sections. There are a few nice anecdotes, such as the gag eyeballs tossed to clerks "keep an eye on things", but otherwise the authors seem to accept the consensus views of the media. Ken Foskett in Judging Thomas does a better job explaining the work of the EEOC and the Court, goes into extensive genealogical and historical background of Pin Point, and had more access to the subject. However, of the three biographies Supreme Discomfort, Judging Thomas , Thomas' own My Grandfather's Son, the autobiography is by far the best written and edited, although by necessity it stops when Thomas joins the court.
 An Okay read, but.... May 15, 2008
I am sure the authors did the best that they could without interviewing the Justice and the book is well written. However, I am not even sure I would read Thomas' own book which came out after this one. Justice Thomas is complex and you are never really sure where he is coming from. Friends argued a case a year or so ago at the U.S. Supreme Court, and I remember one attorney mentioning that Judge Thomas never said a word or asked one question. At least the authors had that part right. I will be donating this one to our local library.
 Read Thomas' own book/ My granfdather's son November 6, 2007
3 out of 7 found this review helpful
I am glad I read the book by Thomas before knowing about this book. I will take away from the reviews that I rather read what Thomas says of his own life, than read some reporter's opinion on who he is. After reading Thomas' book, I see no need to read what they think.
I read his book and feel Thomas' take on who he is is enough for me. I am proud of this Justice for who he is and what he stands for. I am a black woman who has lived and worked in America. I am successful in my own right, not because of affirmative action or preferences. Justice Thomas is on the supreme court because he is qualified, smart and deserving of the office.
No Division in Justice Thomas October 2, 2007
12 out of 16 found this review helpful
This is a difficult book to rate. It's easy reading -- obviously written more to entertain than to inform -- and it's highly biased against the subject yet presented in such a way as to pretend to be balanced. It is character assassination in print.
The subtitle, "The divided soul of Clarence Thomas" is not proven by the discourse. It is obvious that Thomas has a very clear idea of who he is and what the law should be. He is staunch in his beliefs and true to his conscience. There is nothing divided about him.
Justice Thomas seems to have figured out what most of his peers (and definitely the authors)haven't: That affirmative action has proved to be a double-edged sword, as harmful to blacks as it has been useful. It is obvious that Thomas simply considers himself a man, neither black nor white, as he gazes at life and law through clear glasses. To many blacks (and obviously to the authors) this is the Unforgivable Sin.
Thus they portray Justice Thomas as almost manically introspective, weak and flawed. They emphasize the pain he endured over the years from racial slurs and imply that he is almost useless on the court because he can't forget Anita Hill's attacks during his confirmation trial before Congress. I use the word trial intentionally here.
I had wondered why Justice Thomas was publishing a memoir at this time since it would necessarily bring Hill to the forefront again. This book must be the reason. He knew this would be what it is when he refused the authors access to himself and his memorabilia. He was right. The prejudice against him here is almost hysterical.
One of the points the authors belabor again and again is their contention (and yes, it has been said by others) that Thomas is a lackey to or clone of Justice Scalia because they vote the same way. I believe it was Jan Crawford Greenburg (whose new book, "Supreme Conflict: The Inside Story of the Struggle for Control of the United States," is just published) who said in an interview on Book TV just last weekend that she had gone through all the records specifically to determine whether there was truth in that particular assumption. She says in most cases Thomas voted first and that it might be more accurate to say that it was Scalia who followed in Thomas's footsteps. That research should have been done by these authors.
Since their prejudice against Justice Thomas is so pronounced and their indictments of his character so repetitious I can't help but wonder what material they left out from their massive second-source research. It would not be presumptuous to assume that they were highly selective in order to prove their thesis that Thomas is so flawed that he is ineffective on the Court (something that isn't said but is strongly implied in these pages).
One of the things they object to most about him is the fact that he seldom asks questions during court sessions. They don't seem to realize that when one is talking, s/he isn't learning. Justice Thomas says someone always asks the questions he would, so he just listens until the answer surfaces. That is wisdom.
What they object to most, however, seems to be that Thomas is a Constitutional originalist. That is, he believes in the Constitution as written and is suspicious of re-creating it "to fit" contemporary times. He is less inclined to use stare decisis (respect for precedent) when considering cases and he believes strongly in the rights of states to handle most social issues. That conservatism truly irks the authors and I believe these are the reasons they have chosen to emphasize the negative and present such a biased smear.
Almost every page and certainly every chapter belabors the anger and pain that Justice Thomas presumably harbors from his growing up years (in addition to the Hill episode). He would be have to be insane if he wasn't hurt and the fact that he has risen above the destiny presumed by his birth and has served so honorably at various levels of government, including the highest court in the land, shows the mettle of the man.
Justice Clarence Thomas is a great American and a noble jurist who is doing his best. We can ask no more of anyone.
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