A novel entitled The Seven Minutes, purporting to be the thoughts in a woman's mind during seven minutes of sexual intercourse, is reputed to be the most obscene piece of pornography ever written, with massive public debate as to whether or not the book should be banned. A bookseller named Ben Fremont sells The Seven Minutes to Jeffrey Griffith, a college student with no history of violence. The book is found in Jeffrey's possession after his arrest for committing a brutal rape and murder. District Attorney Elmo Duncan takes advantage of the public interest in the case and conspires to publicly link The Seven Minutes with the Jeffrey Griffith trial. His plan is to not only ban the book, but to make possessing it illegal on the grounds of public morality and safety. Ultimately he wishes to use this platform of moral decency to unseat the current senator in an upcoming election. Luther Yerkes, a wealthy businessman who has clashed with the incumbent senator, secretly funds Duncan's censorship campaign. This leads to the arrest of Ben Fremont for providing the book to Griffith, as well as legal action leveled at the book's publisher Phillip Sanford as he refuses to cooperate in an attempt to locate the pseudonymous author of the book, "J.J. Jadway." Sanford claims that the real Jadway committed suicide in Europe years before due to despondency over the book's reception. Sanford, believing the book is an artistic masterpiece and that legal action represents a dangerous precedent, calls upon his old friend, attorney Michael Barrett, to defend Fremont. This results in a landmark obscenity trial in which numerous witnesses are called to speak on the difference between artistic expression and obscenity and the public good versus freedom of choice. Unexpectedly, Senator Thomas Bainbridge takes the stand in the book's defense. Bainbridge reveals that he wrote The Seven Minutes based on a powerful sexual experience that changed his life. At the time she wrote the book, it would have been damaging for him to reveal himself as its author, therefore he invented the name "J.J. Jadway" and had his publisher, Phillip Sanford, spread rumors of Jadway's death to protect Richardson's identity. In fact, much of his testimony is motivated by a desire to separate sexual openness and honesty, which he believes is a public good, from harmful exploitation. After Bainbridge's testimony, the jury finds the book not obscene. The prosecutor vows to try the case again in a different part of the state, but defense attorney Barrett states that is ridiculous to restrict what people are allowed to read in the privacy of their own homes or to use art as a scapegoat for much deeper societal issues.
Historical basis
The Seven Minutes is likely based on the prosecution of New York City bookstore owner Irwin Weisfeld in the early 1960s. Weisfeld's case was well publicized in its time and played a key role in a series of crucial rulings regarding 1st amendment protection of literary works.
The Olympia Press of Maurice Girodias, who was interviewed by Wallace during research for his book, published a novel, The Original Seven Minutes, whose author on the title page was J. J. Jadway, and whose content followed the indications in Wallace's novel. In other words, if Wallace's novel dealt with an allegedly obscene, fictional book, they claimed to be the publishers of that very book. Following legal action by Wallace, the book was withdrawn, and later republished as The Seven Erotic Minutes with the purported author's name and all references to Wallace removed. In the epilogue to the novelEleven Minutes, Paulo Coelho cites Irving Wallace's book as a source of inspiration.
