I had bought this book on a whim. I remembered one of my professors had recommended to me one semester. The author's style of writing was excellent. Not boring, kept the story moving, focused in on specific court rulings that were controversal.

Please be aware before you pick up this book that it is based almost solely on the personal and professional papers of Justice Blackmun, which he left to the U.S. archives for analysis five years after his death.

That said, this is a smooth and informative read for someone who is interested in how the Court works, as well as a first person account of the Court in the 70s/80s/90s. As expected, special attention is placed on Roe vs. Wade, which Blackmun ended up most famous for. However, the book also does a good job of covering other important decisions during Blackmun's tenure. Worth a buy!

What Greenhouse has done with this book is taken a Lifetime Justice Blackmun's papers and condensed it into the "Best of" highlights.
A substantial porition of this book covers Roe v. Wade: Events leading up to it, his role in writing the majority opinion, and then the "preserving Roe" cases and decisions that came to the Court afterwards.

Thus, often times I felt like I was reading about legal meanderings of the Roe v. Wade decision then a biography of Superme Court Justice. The behind the scenes life of being on the Court are often potrayed in the context of deciding abortion related issues.

Yes, there is his story about his beginnings, and his relationship with Justice Warren Burger and how their professional differences resulted in them growing distant. Yes, other cases he are addressed. However, the reader is essentially hampered by the authors decision as to what she finds the most important and what the documents reveal.

If she interivewed any of the 103 law clerks and innumerable other people who knew him during his 21 terms, not to mention his family, it would have made a far more interesting biography. As written one gets an overview of how conservative person ended up being the author of the Roe. v. Wade opinion and its subsequent defense in years thereafter.

Definitely a good starting point but the definitive biography of this Justice has yet to be written.

Towards the end of the Civil War, Lincoln wrote that "I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me." The same might be said of Harry Blackmun's life. Greenhouse however demonstrates that Blackmun also controlled events as well. The author writes that Justice Blackmun "was to be linked forever to a cause that had scarcely been his own." Greenhouse's book portrays Blackmun as incredulous at first as the nation reacted to Roe v. Wade. In fact, Blackmun initially wrote that the reaction to Roe would be "an unsettled period for a while" not fully realizing the ramifications of what he wrote. Yet, throughout his years on the Court, Blackmun came to the realization that Roe, like it or not, was his legacy, and as the Rehnquist court took over, he defended it to his utmost in Webster and Casey.
Reviews of this book have indicated that it is about the relationship between Burger and Blackmun. Instead, Greenhouse focuses on Blackmun's emerging liberal thinking, while sprinkling in the history of Warren and Harry's fractured relationship. While reading this, one would tend to think that the portrait that emerges almost verges on the hagiographic. However, Greenhouse should be commended for writing that many liberals (Ruth Ginsberg included) criticized the Roe decision for its bad reasoning. In fact, the former law clerk to Earl Warren criticized Roe as not even having "colorable support in the constitutional text, history, or any other appropriate source of constitutional doctrine." Greenhouse portrays Blackmun as cold to this kind of criticism, but at the same time, his defense of Roe during the Rehnquist Court does deserve mention because his friendship with Scalia, Rehnquist or Thomas did not suffer. Overall, the book presents a biased yet accurate portrait of a conservative and temperate man that became the paragon of late 20th century liberalism.

"Becoming Justice Blackmun," pivots on the argument that Warren Burger's relationship with Harry Blackmun, first as a legal mentor and then as an ideological foil, formed the basis for Blackmun's judicial thought. I felt this position diminished Blackmun's intellectual independence, and so I gave Greenhouse's book three stars.

Being on the Court changed Blackmun, not Burger. When Greenhouse lets Blackmun speak for himself, we chart his personal and professional growth as a Supreme Court Justice who wrote that, "sometimes we overlook the individual's concern, the fact that these are live human beings (who) are so deeply and terribly affected by our decision."

Blackmun's warm-blooded feel for the Constitution, along with his outstanding writing skills, led him to compose some famous Supreme Court opinions (even when his was the losing position), such as his "machinery of death" in a death penalty case, his "Poor Joshua!" opening in a neglect and abuse case and his electrifying "right to privacy" argument in the Roe v. Wade abortion case. In bringing Blackmun's vast writings into sharp focus, Greenhouse captures his respectful understanding of personal liberties and Constitutional boundaries.

At Blackmun's funeral, Justice Breyer observed that "it is not often that a man or woman...in a cloistered office, manages through the years to find, not a narrowing, but a broadening of mind, of outlook, and of spirit." That's the real story of Harry Blackmun and if you read this book with that perspective, you'll find the real story of becoming Justice Blackmun.