Patsy Brumfield reviews: ‘The Fall of the House of Zeus’
Richard “Dickie” Scruggs liked his friends close and his enemies closer.
His wife, Diane, lived in dread that they would be his undoing. She was right.
In a much-anticipated book, “The Fall of the House of Zeus,” Oxford journalist Curtis Wilkie skillfully walks through the life of his friend Dickie Scruggs, now disgraced but at one time one of America’s most famous litigators.
Diane Scruggs, perhaps the story’s only heroic figure, is its most prescient about human behavior. Like Cassandra of Greek tragedy, she sees through the crass characters her husband affiliates with, but her warnings are ignored.
It’s reminiscent of the old Johnny Rivers song about a woman who finds a frozen snake and brings it into her house to warm. She is surprised when it revives and fatally bites her.
“You knew darn well I was a snake before you brought me in,” one of its closing lines goes.
Throughout “Zeus,” Scruggs admits he’s chosen some shady men to work and play with. They certainly help him light his own funeral pyre.
Daily Journal
10/3/10
Magnolia Tribune
