John Grisham
John Grisham (born February 8, 1955), is a former politician, retired attorney, American novelist and author best known for his works of modern legal drama.
Biography and career
The second eldest of five siblings was born 1955 in Jonesboro, Arkansas to Southern Baptist parents of modest means. His father worked as a construction worker and a cotton farmer. After moving frequently, the family settled in 1967 in the small town of Southaven in De Soto County, Mississippi. Encouraged by his mother, young Grisham was an avid reader, especially influenced by the work of John Steinbeck whose clarity he admired. In 1977, Grisham received a B.Sc. degree in accounting from Mississippi State University. While studying at MSU, the author began keeping a journal, a practice that would later assist in his creative endeavors. After earning his J.D. degree from the University of Mississippi School of Law in 1981, he practiced small-town general law for nearly a decade in Southaven, where he became bored with criminal law and successful at civil law.
In 1983, he was elected to the Mississippi House of Representatives, where he served until 1990.
In 1984 at the De Soto County courthouse in Hernando, Grisham witnessed the harrowing testimony of a 12-year-old rape victim. In his spare time and as a hobby, Grisham began work on his first novel, which explored what would have happened if the girl's father had murdered her assailants. He spent three years on A Time to Kill and finished it in 1987. Initially rejected by many publishers, the manuscript eventually was bought by Wynwood Press, which gave it a modest 5,000-copy printing and published it in June 1988.
The day after Grisham completed A Time to Kill, he began work on another novel, the story of a young attorney lured to an apparently perfect law firm that was not what it appeared. That second book, The Firm, became the bestselling novel of 1991. Grisham then went on to produce at least one work a year, most of them widely popular bestsellers. Beginning with A Painted House in 2001, the author broadened his focus from law to the more general rural south, all the while continuing to pen his legal thrillers.
Publishers Weekly declared Grisham "the bestselling novelist of the 90s." During the 90s, he sold a total of 60,742,288 copies. He is also one of only two authors to sell two million copies on a first printing. His 1992 novel The Pelican Brief sold 11,232,480 copies in the United States alone, making it the bestselling novel of the decade and the only novel to sell ten million copies or more during the decade.
In 1996, Grisham briefly returned to the practice of law when he successfully represented the family of a man killed in a railroad accident.
The Mississippi State University Libraries, Manuscript Division, maintains the "John Grisham Papers," an archive containing materials generated during the author's tenure as Mississippi State Representative and relating to his writings.
Grisham's lifelong passion for baseball is evident in his novel A Painted House and in his support of Little League activities in both Oxford, Mississippi and Charlottesville, Virginia. He wrote the original screenplay for and produced the baseball movie Mickey, starring Harry Connick, Jr.. The movie was released on DVD in 2004. He has also performed mission service for his church, notably in Brazil. Grisham describes himself as a "moderate Baptist." He lives with his wife, Renee, (née Jones) and their two children, Ty and Shea. The family splits their time between their Victorian home on a farm outside Oxford and a plantation near Charlottesville.
Bibliography
Novels
- A Time to Kill (1989)
A man kills two drunken rednecks after they rape his daughter. - The Firm (1991)
Mitch McDeere gets a job at a new firm, then discovers that the firm is listening in on his phone calls and the FBI want to talk to him. - The Pelican Brief (1992)
Darby Shaw tries to solve the mystery of the deaths of a liberal and a conservative Supreme Court Justice. - The Client (1993)
Eleven year old Mark Sway knows who killed a US Senator, but is afraid the killers will kill him. - The Chamber (1994)
Adam Hall tries to argue a stay for his grandfather, who bombed a Jewish lawyer's office. - The Rainmaker (1995)
Rudy Baylor takes on a case against an enormous insurance company who refused to save a man's life. The only problem is Rudy Baylor has no experience. - The Runaway Jury (1996)
Defense attorney Rankin Fitch tries to manipulate the jury verdict of a case against a large tobacco company. - The Partner (1997)
A partner in a law firm fakes his death to steal $90 million. Afterwards, he flees to Brazil. - The Street Lawyer (1998)
Michael Brock defends the homeless. - The Testament (1999)
A billionaire business man leaves every one out of his will except his mysterious illegitmate daughter. - The Brethren (2000)
Three ex-judges in jail are involved in a mail scam that gets out of control. - A Painted House (2001)
A story inspired by John Grisham's own life, the character keeps secrets that not only threaten the crop but will change his life forever. - Skipping Christmas (2001)
Imagine a year without Christmas. The movie "Christmas With the Kranks" was inspired by this book. - The Summons (2002)
A dying judge sends a summons to his to sons. One of them finds his father's hidden fortune a little too late. - The King of Torts (2003)
J. Clay Carter, a DC legal aid lawyer, accepts a case that takes him into the dizzying world of a drug company. He becomes rich and gets all the problems that come with it. - Bleachers (2003)
Men in a small southern town return to the heights of their glory to wait until their high school football coach dies. - The Last Juror (2004)
In the early 1970's, just out of college, Willie Traynor buys a weekly paper in Ford County. His life gets entangled with the biggest court case of its time in the area and with the people that it effects the most. - The Broker (2005)
Publishers Note: In his final hours in the Oval Office, the outgoing President grants a controversial last-minute pardon to Joel Backman, a notorious Washington power broker who has spent the last six years hidden away in a federal prison. What no one knows is that the President issues the pardon only after receiving enormous pressure from the CIA. It seems Backman, in his power broker heyday, may have obtained secrets that compromise the world’s most sophisticated satellite surveillance system. Backman is quietly smuggled out of the country in a military cargo plane, given a new name, a new identity, and a new home in Italy. Eventually, after he has settled into his new life, the CIA will leak his whereabouts to the Israelis, the Russians, the Chinese, and the Saudis. Then the CIA will do what it does best: sit back and watch. The question is not whether Backman will survive—there is no chance of that. The question the CIA needs answered is, who will kill him?
See also
External links
Official John Grisham Website
Read And Write Reviews On Novels By John Grisham