Hitting on the truth

------------------------- "Hurricane: The Miraculous Journey of Rubin Carter" by James S. Hirsch Houghton Mifflin, $25

"Lazarus and the Hurricane: The Freeing of Rubin `Hurricane' Carter" by Sam Chaiton and Terry Swinton St. Martin's Griffin, $14.95 -------------------------

OK, all you book-page readers who have already seen the new movie "The Hurricane," starring Denzel Washington. If you are going to read either of these books about the one-time champion boxer, or merely to the end of this review, put most of those cinematic scenes out of your mind. Because many of those scenes are made up - fictionalized, something Hollywood studios do so well, while making you think you are viewing the truth.

Neither of these books appears to be fictionalized, at least not in any major way. Sure, the two books have a different vantage point on Rubin Carter's life and the lives of those around him, so they seem contradictory at certain points. But if you want to know how Carter came to be a boxing champion, how he ended up in prison for murder and how he proved he had been unjustly convicted, either of these books is preferable to the movie.

The book by Sam Chaiton and Terry Swinton came first. Published during 1991 in Canada, where the two men live, it has just been issued in the United States (to capitalize on the movie publicity). It is such an unusual story that it does seem like fiction. But it's not.

The Lazarus in the title is actually Lesra Martin. His parents apparently meant to name him Lazarus, but screwed up the spelling. Growing up in the slums of New York City, Martin met the two Canadians and some of their communal housemates in 1979. Martin, then 15, had a low-level summer job for inner-city youth at the Environmental Protection Agency lab in Brooklyn. The Canadians were visiting the lab on business. They struck up a conversation with Martin. Eventually, they saw the poverty in which he was living.

Upon their return to Toronto, the Canadians could not get Martin out of their minds. Eventually, they proposed to Martin's impoverished parents that the African-American teenager move to Toronto, where he could be provided for and educated within the then all-Caucasian commune. Martin's parents gave their permission.

What does this have to do with the imprisoned boxing champion Carter? Well, it became apparent that Martin was functionally illiterate, despite having moved from grade to grade within the New York public schools. While teaching him to read, the Canadians took him to a used-book sale, where Martin happened to buy Carter's 1974 autobiography, "The Sixteenth Round."

Martin became fascinated with Carter and his plight, and so did the Canadian commune members. They decided to give Carter moral support as he paced his New Jersey prison cell (the movie gives disproportionate credit to the Canadians at the expense of Carter's lawyers, who worked on his case for decades).

Cut now to the full-life Carter biography by James S. Hirsch, a former New York Times and Wall Street Journal reporter now free-lancing from Boston. The book, written with Carter's cooperation, opens in late 1980. Carter, normally reclusive, had answered Martin's boyish letter of admiration. Martin, returning to New York to visit his biological family, arranged to see Carter, with help from his Canadian support group. Hirsch sets the scene as Martin enters the prison for a brief visit to the famous inmate.

Hirsch's book relies heavily on the 1991 Chaiton-Swinton version for some scenes. Other sections are filled with original research by Hirsch.

Which book should a casual reader start with, given limited time? The Chaiton-Swinton book is the best choice if the reader wants an insider-ish account of the interracial, cross-cultural relationships that evolved from 1979 through 1988, when Carter finally won exoneration from the judicial system that had incarcerated him for murder in 1966.

The Hirsch book is the best choice if the reader wants to understand all of Carter's life, from his birth in 1937 through his activities on behalf of the wrongly convicted circa 1999.

Hirsch's book is more enlightening in some ways about the commune than the Chaiton-Swinton account, because the two insiders are so determined to protect the privacy, and mystery, of their housemates. For example, the Hirsch book explains more fully about the unusual love affair between commune member Lisa Peters and Carter that resulted in a marriage of convenience.

For readers who care less about the biographical aspect and more about the corruption of justice, either book will serve, although Hirsch's goes into greater depth. Carter was no saint at the time of the crime he was convicted of, the 1966 tavern murders of three Caucasian patrons. But it should have been obvious from the day of his arrest, along with alleged accomplice John Artis, that police and prosecutors were motivated more by race hatred and desperation to clear the case than by justice. Later on, the same could be said of jurors and judges. Carter would probably still be imprisoned today, but for the sagacity and courage of federal Judge H. Lee Sarokin, who found a way to overrule all the New Jersey courts.

Neither book is an overview of the wrongful-conviction phenomenon. But both books make clear through the Carter case that wrongful convictions affect far more people than those incarcerated. Family, friends, co-workers are all dragged into the mire, and eventually lose faith in the legal system. Although Carter's supporters were labeled bleeding-heart liberals by his detractors, the wrongful-conviction phenomenon is actually a law-and-order issue. To this day, the police in Paterson, N.J., have failed to catch the actual killers of those three tavern customers.

Steve Weinberg, a journalist in Columbia, Mo., has done extensive research and writing about wrongful convictions.