The Rainmaker

 

If one thinks courtrooms are boring and serious, one should read John Grisham’s The Rainmaker (1995). Meet Rudy Baylor who just passed his bar exam and has a week before he takes the oath. But he’s already handling a lawsuit in court after his boss, Bruiser Stone fails to show up. Rudy has to face the great Leo F. Drummond who represents Great Benefit, a big insurance company.

Things get interesting – and humorous – when Judge Harvey Hale is replaced by Tyrone Kipler upon the former’s death. At first, I planned to spend a few weeks on this 598 page novel; between lecture hours. But after Chapter Thirty, it’s very hard to stop reading. You just want to know what happens next to Dot and Buddy Black, Donny Ray, Miss Birdie Birdsong, Kelly Riker and the narrator, Rudy Baylor.

I have watched the movie version of Grisham’s novels: A Time To Kill, The Firm, The Pelican Brief and The Client. Still, I prefer the book version for the simple reason that his novels are far too interesting to be watched as one and a half or two hour movies. My advice: read the novel. Then watch the movie.

 

Uthaya Sankar SB

15 August 2001

 

More books review at http://www.oocities.org/Athens/Delphi/4586/grisham.html

 

According to information at http://www.randomhouse.com/features/grisham/, on February 6, 2001, John Grisham celebrates the publication of his 12th novel A Painted House.

Twelve years ago, though, long before his name became synonymous with the modern legal thriller, he was working 60-70 hours a week at a small Southaven, Mississippi law practice, squeezing in time before going to the office and during courtroom recesses to work on his hobby -- writing his first novel.

Born on February 8, 1955 in Jonesboro, Arkansas, to a construction worker and a homemaker, John Grisham as a child dreamed of being a professional baseball player. Realizing he didn't have the right stuff for a pro career, he shifted gears and majored in accounting at Mississippi State University. After graduating from law school at Ole Miss in 1981, he went on to practice law for nearly a decade in Southaven, specializing in criminal defense and personal injury litigation. In 1983, he was elected to the state House of Representatives and served until 1990.

One day at the Dessoto County courthouse, Grisham overheard the harrowing testimony of a twelve-year-old rape victim and was inspired to start a novel exploring what would have happened if the girl's father had murdered her assailants. Getting up at 5 a.m. every day to get in several hours of writing time before heading off to work, Grisham spent three years on A Time to Kill and finished it in 1987. Initially rejected by many publishers, it was eventually bought by Wynwood press, who gave it a modest 5,000 copy printing and published it in June 1988.

That might have put an end to Grisham's hobby. However, he had already begun his next book, and it would quickly turn that hobby into a new full-time career -- and spark one of publishing's greatest success stories. The day after Grisham completed A Time to Kill, he began work on another novel, the story of a hotshot young attorney lured to an apparently perfect law firm that was not what it appeared. When he sold the film rights to The Firm to Paramount Pictures for $600,000, Grisham suddenly became a hot property among publishers, and book rights were bought by Doubleday. Spending 47 weeks on The New York Times bestseller list, The Firm became the bestselling novel of 1991.

The successes of The Pelican Brief, which hit number one on the New York Times bestseller list, and The Client, which debuted at number one, confirmed Grisham's reputation as the master of the legal thriller. Grisham's success even renewed interest in A Time to Kill, which was republished in hardcover by Doubleday and then in paperback by Dell. This time around, it was a bestseller.

Since first publishing A Time to Kill in 1988, Grisham has written one novel a year (his other books are The Chamber, The Rainmaker, The Runaway Jury, The Partner, and The Street Lawyer), and all of them have become bestsellers, leading Publishers Weekly to declare him "the bestselling novelist of the 90s" in a January 1998 profile. There are currently over 60 million John Grisham books in print worldwide, which have been translated into 29 languages. Six of his novels have been turned into films (The Firm, The Pelican Brief, The Client, A Time to Kill, The Rainmaker, and The Chamber), as was an original screenplay, The Gingerbread Man.

Grisham lives with his wife Renee and their two children Ty and Shea. The family splits their time between their Victorian home on a farm in Mississippi and a plantation near Charlottesville, VA.

Grisham took time off from writing for several months in 1996 to return, after a five-year hiatus, to the courtroom. He was honoring a commitment made before he had retired from the law to become a full-time writer: representing the family of a railroad brakeman killed when he was pinned between two cars. Preparing his case with the same passion and dedication as his books' protagonists, Grisham successfully argued his clients' case, earning them a jury award of $683,500 -- the biggest verdict of his career.

When he's not writing, Grisham devotes time to charitable causes, including taking mission trips with his church group. He also keeps up with his greatest passion: baseball. The man who dreamed of being a professional baseball player now serves as the local Little League commissioner. The six ballfields he built on his property have played host to over 350 kids on 26 Little League teams.

 

John Grisham Interview at http://members.aol.com/fictwri/jg.html

Q:Was there a person who inspired you?

A: I had the benefit of some very good high school English teachers. One in particular when I was a senior in high school. I was a jock, okay. I was not a student. Although I enjoyed reading, that was about it as far as academics.

But she forced us to read good books and good writers, particularly good American writers. We weren't too thrilled to do it initially, but she taught us how to do it. Through that, I discovered some of my favorite authors, particularly John Steinbeck. Once I had gone through all of Steinbeck's books, I realized that I had had a wonderful experience.

I remember reading a lot of Steinbeck in high school and thinking, "I'd love to be able to write this clearly." At the same time we were having to read Faulkner. So we had Faulkner on one hand, and Steinbeck on the other, and Steinbeck looked remarkably clear, compared to Faulkner. I can't say that when I'm in Mississippi, but I can say it here.

Q:What was the teacher's name?

A:Francis McGuffey. She's still teaching, and we still correspond. She comes to my book signings in Memphis when I'm there. I send her an autographed copy of every book. We're still friends, still buddies.

Q:What particular books meant a lot to you when you were young?

A:I read a lot of books when I was a kid, just for the sheer fun of reading. All the series of mysteries and books like that. The first book I remember that really grabbed me was a book that Miss McGuffey made us read, a book called Tortilla Flat by Steinbeck.

And when I read it, I really enjoyed the book. And so I went to her and said, "This is really -- I like this." And she was shocked that I would show any interest in what she was making us do. So she said, okay, read this. And the next one was Of Mice and Men. So she sort of fed the Steinbeck books to me. When I read The Grapes of Wrath -- we saved that for last -- I knew that was a very powerful book. And I don't know if it had anything to do with my writing style, or me as a writer, because I wasn't thinking about it back then. It had a lot to do with the way I viewed humanity and the struggles of little people against big people. It was a very important book for me.

Q:Was there a moment in your career that really stands out?

A:There have been some wonderful phone calls from New York. The biggest phone call yet was the first time, a truly magical moment. After a year of being turned down, my agent called one day in April of '88 and said, "We have a publisher for A Time to Kill. It's going to be a book." At that point it had been turned down by 30-something publishers. Everybody had said no to it. He found a very small press in New York, and they wanted to buy it. That was a huge moment.

Another time, he called and said, "We've sold the film rights to The Firm to Paramount." It was totally unexpected, because at that time there was no book deal, it was just in manuscript form. Those are big moments. I don't know if you sort of get jaded, or callous to success, but it's still terribly exciting. It's still hard to believe.

The Firm was published four years ago, so it's been awfully quick. The Firm was not the first book, but it was the first book anybody read. My career is still in its infancy and it still feels brand new. Something happens every day that makes me stop and try to remember where I am and what's happening.

Q:Tell us about your family and your friends.

A:It's easy to remember friends.

When A Time to Kill was published, it was an unknown author, unknown book, unknown publisher.

There was no money for promotion, so I tried to sell the book myself.  And I went to a lot of book stores in the Memphis, mid-South area and a lot of them had no time, you know? They didn't want a new author, especially one with a publisher they'd never heard of. But there were a handful who opened their doors and said, "Sure, come in. We'll try to sell some books, and we'll have a party, and we'll invite all of our customers."

And, you know... It's hard to forget people like that.

And it's fun now. I go back every time. I've gone back with every book. There are five stores. I call them -- they're my home stores. These are friends of mine, and I can't imagine publishing a book and not going back to their stores. I mean, now the book signings last for, you know, ten or 12 hours, but you know, it's still fun.

It's tiring, but it's only once a year. I don't do it every day. And there are worse things in life than signing lots of copies of your own books. I'm still gratified that people show up and wait in line to get a book signed.