Voir Dire

The novelist Joseph McElroy (ACTRESS IN THE HOUSE, WOMEN AND MEN) has long been working on a novel with the great title VOIR DIRE, a term familiar to anyone who's reported to jury duty. But what exactly does it mean? Literally, of course, "to see to say." During the little information session that kicks things off on your first morning at the courthouse, you'll learn that it means "To see them say"—an opportunity for the lawyers to ask questions and agree on the juror selection.

But the last time I served (I was picked for the jury . . . they *always* pick me for the jury), the scatterbrained but kind of charmingly maternal Linda Lavin-y judge said, "It means 'to speak the truth,'" which must have struck everyone as not quite right, but we let her say whatever she wanted—she was Linda Lavin-y!

A few months later, nursing a wounded foot in Calgary, I found this in a local paper: "In the statement, played earlier in the voir dire (trial within a trial), 'K' told police the other two boys— 'P' and 'M'—repeatedly took turns stabbing Wong, 42, until the knife blade broke . . . "

"Trial within a trial"? I love how this leads to the Kafkaesque intials of the defendants. Some cub reporter is trying to write the great American novel while on the job—rather, great *Canadian* novel.