Novel includes transgender characters and murdered son of powerful New Jersey politician
Criminal defense attorney Erin McCabe works in an office located in a second-floor turret of a Victorian home in Cranford. She’s been referred to the biggest case of her career: defending a 19-year-old prostitute accused of fatally stabbing the son of a powerful New Jersey senator in a 
rundown motel near Atlantic City.
It’s a high-profile case that she’s been assigned in part because, like her client, McCabe is a transgender woman. Both are characters in Robyn Gigl’s first legal thriller, By Way of Sorrow, which will be published next year.
Gigl, a partner at GluckWalrath in Freehold, said she always wanted to write fiction, but had never considered pursuing it professionally. When she began writing several years ago, much had changed in her life. Having been married, had children and built a 40-year career in law, in 2009 Gigl transitioned to live in accordance with her gender identity. Since that time, she served as chair of the New Jersey State Bar Association’s LGBT Rights Section and often speaks on employment law issues for LGBT individuals and cultural competency issues.
Gigl got the idea for By Way of Sorrow, which she describes as “a good beach read,” in 2018. Although it includes transgender characters and touches on issues some transgender people face, Gigl said she wasn’t necessarily writing for the LGBT-plus community.
“Although I certainly want them to read it, I wrote it for as broad an audience as possible—the Scott Turow or John Grisham reader, someone who is going to read a legal thriller,” Gigl said. “I want you to be able to read it if you’re a cisgender, heterosexual, white male who enjoys reading and would think, ‘Oh, this is good. What’s going to happen next?’ And maybe along the way I could educate a little bit.”
She is at work on a second novel in the McCabe series from her home in Bradley Beach.
The following is a Q&A with Gigl. It has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Is the novel based on anyone or any case?
By Way of Sorrow is just a legal thriller. It’s totally made up. The characters are nobody I know and are not based on anyone or experiences, other than to the extent you can draw on general conclusions of someone being a transgender individual and having the experience of coming out.
The character, Erin McCabe, is in her 30s. It’s not me. It wasn’t intended to be me. In fact, it was intended to not be me.
Peg McCabe is one of the few characters where I drew from someone. In my own case, it was my own mom. It was my way of thanking my mom for her support. It was hard for her. When I came out to my mom, she was in her 80s. She’s now 96. She’s a good Irish Catholic woman. It was hard for her to understand and deal with. Before I went up to Boston to have some surgery and begin living as Robyn all the time, we had dinner together. She said, “I don’t understand it. I don’t necessarily like it. I’m worried for you. You’re my child and I will always love you regardless.” And she has. Peg is a bit of my homage to my mom.
I was also drawing from my own personal experience and my relationship with my wife. We separated years ago when I came out, but we’re still the best of friends.
There are several scenes with a judge where Erin has to explain what transgender means and the proper pronouns and terminology to use. Have you had to do that?
These are not based on any real judge or lawyers. I totally made them up and set it in 2006 and 2007. I didn’t want anyone to think this was about anyone living or dead, or that this is about them. When I went through the gender confirmation process back in 2009, the terminology was not as well known. There were not as many out and open transgender people. People used terminology inappropriately back then more than in 2020. I put myself back in that time frame of where the community and society were. Someone will say, “Oh, you’re transgendered.” Or, “Oh, did you transgender?” You don’t see that as much anymore.
I would say my own personal experience in terms of the Judiciary in New Jersey has been incredibly positive. That said, I do know other individuals and non-lawyers whose experiences have been different, at least anecdotally.
Have you ever done criminal defense work or handled a murder case?
I never handled a murder case. I’ve been practicing law for over 40 years, and for probably 30 of those years, to varying degrees, I’ve done criminal defense work. I stopped doing criminal work about five or six years ago. One of the reasons was I changed law firms.
The novel deals with racism, which is described through the experiences of several Black characters, including Erin’s law partner, Duane Swisher, and Sharise Barnes, the defendant.
I was sensitive to the fact that I come to this from a position of white privilege. I wanted to explore it and, hopefully, in a way that would educate me, if that makes any sense, to someone else’s point of view and someone else’s lived experiences. By talking to people and listening to people, I hope I was able to gain some insight and appropriate expression of those feelings from their perspective.
Our system is unbalanced in terms of the way people of color are treated and the way white people are treated. In New Jersey, there are people who are trying to get it right.