John Grisham - 1955
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Houston High School in Houston, Mississippi
I. Professional and Personal Life
After his first successful book, The Firm, was published in 1991, John Grisham's career exploded. He put four books on the best sellers' list within twenty-four months. The movie rights to several of these books, including The Client, which brought $2.5 million, were sold. However, Grisham did not start out successfully.
Grisham was born February 8, 1955, in Jonesboro, Arkansas. He was the son of a construction worker who moved his family around the Deep South. With each new town, the family would join a new Baptist church. The children also quickly went to get their library cards and check out all of the books they could. Even in his younger years, teachers noticed Grisham's self-confidence and burning desire to be number one.
Halfway through a pre-law degree at Mississippi State, Grisham decided to change his major to tax law. After a short time, he decided that tax law was not for him so he went back to criminal law. In his first case, Grisham successfully defended a man who shot his wife's lover in the chest six times. Run-of the-mill criminal law couldn't feed his family, so he went into civil law. Like the typical over-achiever, Grisham won one of the largest damage settlements in Desoto County, Mississippi history. The suit successfully laid the blame on the manufacturer of a water heater that exploded burning a child on 92 percent of his body. It was during this time that he and a friend would sneak to the William Faulkner home or Square Books in Oxford, Mississippi, when the pressures of law got too much for them. It was on one of these getaways that he first picked up a notebook and started writing.
After a short time, Grisham decided that writing was his future. He quit law and got his first book, A Time to Kill , published. It sold only 5,000 copies; 1,000 of which he bought himself. When he found an article on the rules of writing suspense in an old copy of Writer's Digest, Grisham began his next book The Firm . With the success of The Firm, The Pelican Brief, The Client, and a later re-release of A Time to Kill, John Grisham went from obscurity to stardom almost instantly.
Grisham, his wife Renee, and their children split their time between a large farm in Oxford and a Virginia home. He spends his time writing and coaching Little League Baseball. His new book The Brethren has just been released.
II. Literary works
A Time to Kill - Jake Brigance, a small-town lawyer defends, before an all-white jury, a black Vietnam vet who kills the two white men who raped his daughter.
The Firm - Mitchell McDeere, a law student from Harvard, joins a Memphis law firm Bendini, Lambert & Locke. When the firm turns out to be the front for a Mafia money-laundering operation, Mitchell is caught in what seems to be a no win situation. However, his shrewdness allows him to escape the firm with money from both the Mafia and the FBI.
The Pelican Brief - Darby Shaw, a Tulane University law student, is nearly trapped by a conspiracy to assassinate Supreme Court justices when she knows too much.
The Client – Eleven-year-old Mark Sway is caught up in a mob investigation when a lawyer who commits suicide reveals the illegal activities of his mobster boss. He hires a 52-year-old divorcee lawyer who helps him elude the FBI, the mob, and child welfare authorities.
The Chamber - Adam Hall, a young defense lawyer, fights for a stay of execution for his grandfather. During this fight, Adam must come to terms with the fact that he hates the anti-Semitic prejudices that drove his grandfather to bomb the liberal Jewish lawyers' office, the reason for his sentence.
The Runaway Jury – This book is a story borrowed from newspaper headlines. A woman seeks compensation from a tobacco company for her husband's death from cancer.
The Partner – This is the story of a lawyer who embezzles 90 million dollars from his firm and fakes his death.
The Street Lawyer – This book tells of a yuppie lawyer who leaves a high-paying job to work in a street law clinic.
The Testament
The Brethren – This is Grisham's latest book, and it is now available in bookstores everywhere. It is a tale of three judges incarcerated in a federal penitentiary, and a presidential election rigged by the CIA.
III. John Grisham on the Web
http://www.doubleday.com
IV. Sources "Book 'em." Newsweek, v.121 March 15, 1993: 78-81.
Wilson Web Biographies This essay was submitted by students of Beverly Doss, a teacher at Houston High School in Houston, Mississippi.