(2 of 2)
Still, Tarnower is the real victim of the events of March 10, 1980. He is dead forever while Harris, once headmistress of the Madeira school in Virginia, has found a new outlet for her formidable organizational and tutorial talents among the inmates at the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility. The author admits to an early sympathy for Harris, then 57, whom Tarnower replaced as No. 1 companion with his secretary Lynne Tryforos, then 37. But as the trial progresses, Trilling grows increasingly disturbed by the accused's air of cultural superiority and emotional disengagement. At the evidence table, Harris examines her ex-lover's bloodstained bedsheets with the dispassionate look of a dry cleaner. She takes notes and shuffles papers as if she were her lawyer's assistant, not his client. Her references to Tryforos are redolent with snootiness. Of Harris, says Trilling: "La-dylikeness is her great stock-in-trade."
It was also her undoing, along with the mink hat she wore before the jury and the incriminating "Scarsdale letter" to Tarnower in which Harris sounds like anything but a lady. The defense contended that, despite the doctor's multiple bullet wounds, his death was "a tragic accident." Harris, it was argued, had driven all the way from her home in Virginia with a .32-cal. revolver to commit suicide after seeing "Hi" just one more time. The defendant described an ensuing struggle for the gun, which went off more than once. The jury did not buy the story and convicted Harris of murder in the second degree, defined as killing with a conscious intent. Trilling does not buy the verdict. She believes that Jean Harris harbored a murderous rage but not premeditation.
Of the lethal event itself, Trilling suggests that Harris did not lie; instead, her need to be right and respectable drove the truth into her subconscious. This conclusion is a long way from the annals of law. But in the court of literature, Trilling's Jean Harris is a great portrait of an American aberration. —By R.Z. Sheppard
Excerpt
"Mrs. Harris is still convinced ... that when she drove to Purchase for a last moment of peace and security with her lover, suicide was the only purpose she had in mind. If one grants that this was so, one can't help but wonder what the outcome of the evening would have been had Dr. Tarnower, instead of refusing to open his eyes, instead of just lying there hugging a pillow—Mrs. Harris didn't make that up—had bestirred himself, talked to his night visitor and tried to comfort her, perhaps made love to her. At least for the time being it might have dispelled her distress, bought the doctor his life and bought Mrs. Harris her life."