CHAMPAIGN - Robert Isham Auler went through the whole New York publishing house/agent process a couple of times - even getting up to the final meetings - only to not get his novel to publication.

"I'm too old to be doing this," he finally told himself. "I want to get published."

Now Auler's "Keep and Bear Arms" has been published by Mayhaven Publishing Inc., Mahomet.

Q: Let's start by learning something about Robert Isham Auler.

Over the years, he has been in radio broadcasting and even worked at a small television station while in high school. Now a Champaign resident, Auler is a University of Illinois College of Law graduate.

"It's my day gig, being a lawyer for 41 years," he said, "and a wonderful source of material.

"I've been up, I've been down, I've been picked on," he continued. "I've been challenging the establishment for years.

"That's one of my high points.

"I don't fit."

Q: And about the writing?

While Auler began writing at an early age - he wrote a haunted house serial that was published in the school mimeographed newspaper - he also has a great deal experience writing legal documents.

"The legal writing is so sterile," he said. "I can't resist hyping it up."

That includes those legal documents having such additions as puns and hyperbole (exaggeration for effect).

And that doesn't cause some reactions?

"Oh, yeah," he confessed. "I'm not liked by some of them (judges and other attorneys), but you just put up with that."

Q: How about the newly-published book?

"Like every piece of fiction, it's based on facts, if it's going to be credible," he said.

And this is a courtroom drama.

"Parts of me are in every character."

But there are also people he has met along the way, like the courtroom bailiff who, for all practical purposes Auler based upon a bailiff whom he knew.

Auler continued: "The book is written to make people see through a lawyer's eyes how difficult it is to follow your client's instructions.

"The book is very ironic.

"The irony is that everyone believes his own (bull)."

Q: Are there other novels in the works?

Yes is the quick response.

If people like this one, he said, he has another written in 1969-70 based upon a murder case he did in Champaign.

Then there's "Cheatin'."

That one is about sports, a ruined baseball pitcher who hits rock bottom, becomes an attorney then a sports agent. And it, too, Auler would classify as irreverent.

Q: Just one more quick question. The artist who designed the book cover?

The cover is a design created by Jack Davis, said Auler, one of his clients, and also the creator of the Chief Illiniwek symbol.

And now, not another question, just an added personal note:

While I've not interviewed John Grisham, also an author/attorney, I can't imagine interviewing him for a Bookmark column would be any more of a roller coaster ride than it was trying to capture Robert Isham Auler in a conversation filled with stories.

And to prove that point, here is just one of them Auler told during the interview.

He and Roger Ebert were students at the University of Illinois at the same time.

We would attack each other in print in The Daily Illini, said Auler. And according to Ebert's promotional piece written for the book, he was fired by Auler from the campus radio station while then he in turned fired Auler from the Illini.

Auler said he was at Ebert's once for a Fourth of July party when he met the late Gene Siskel, introducing himself by saying, "I'm the last guy ever to fire Ebert."

Siskel responded, said Auler, by saying, "I want to know every delicious detail."

And, Auler added, talking with him about "Keep and Bear Arms" on the day the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of owning guns for self-defense seemed fittingly ironic.

Arlene Mannlein can be reached at amannlein@herald-review.com or 421-6976.

About the book

TITLE: "Keep and Bear Arms" by Robert Isham Auler

TYPE: Hardcover, 328 pages

ISBN-10: 1932278419

ISBN-13: 978-1932278415

PUBLISHER: Mayhaven Publishing, Inc. (May 10, 2008)

LIST PRICE: $26.95

AVAILABLE: robertishamauler.com; mayhavenpublishing.com; amazon.com; barnesandnoble.com.