John Grisham

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John Grisham
Grisham in 2008.
Born	John Ray Grisham February 8, 1955 (1955-02-08) (age 54) Jonesboro, Arkansas, United States
Occupation	Novelist
Nationality	American
Alma mater	Mississippi State University, and University of Mississippi School of Law
Writing period	1989-present
Genres	Legal thriller, Crime fiction, Football
Influences John Steinbeck, John le Carré
Official website

John Ray Grisham (born February 8, 1955) is an American author, best known for his popular legal thrillers. Before becoming a writer, he was a successful lawyer and politician. As of 2008, his books have sold over 250 million copies worldwide.^[1]

[edit] Biography and career

John Grisham, the second oldest of five siblings, was born in Jonesboro, Arkansas, to Southern Baptist parents of modest means. His father worked as a construction worker and a cotton farmer while his mother was a homemaker.^[2] After relocating frequently, the family settled in 1967 in the town of Southaven in DeSoto County, Mississippi, where Grisham graduated from Southaven High School. He played as a quarterback for the school football team. Encouraged by his mother, the young Grisham was an avid reader, and was especially influenced by the work of John Steinbeck, whose clarity he admired. His brother Vaughn is one of the nation's main experts on Community Development and is a professor of Public Administration at the University of Mississippi.

[edit] Education

During 1977, Grisham received a Bachelor of Science degree in accounting from Mississippi State University. Grisham tried for the baseball team at Delta State University, but was dismissed by the coach, who was former Boston Red Sox pitcher Dave "Boo" Ferriss. Grisham and Ferris have since teamed to host a fundraiser for Delta State Baseball, at which the two discussed how and why Ferris dismissed Grisham, telling him he should "stick to the books" after Grisham failed miserably in his attempts to hit a college level curve ball. He earned his Juris Doctor degree from the University of Mississippi School of Law in 1981. During law school Grisham switched interests from tax law to criminal and general civil litigation. Upon graduation he entered a small-town general law practice for nearly a decade in Southaven, where he focused on criminal law and civil law representing a broad spectrum of clients. As a young attorney he spent much of his time in court proceedings.

[edit] Political life

During 1983 he was elected as a Democrat to the Mississippi House of Representatives, where he served until 1990. During his time as a legislator, he continued his private law practice in Southaven. He has donated over $100,000 to Democratic Party candidates. During September, 2007 Grisham appeared with Hillary Rodham Clinton, his stated choice for U.S. President in 2008, and former Virginia Governor Mark Warner, whom Grisham supported for the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Republican John Warner (no relation). Grisham himself had considered challenging former GOP U.S. Senator George Allen, Jr. in the 2006 Virginia Senatorial Election.

[edit] Inspiration for first novel

In 1984 at the DeSoto County courthouse in Hernando, Grisham witnessed the harrowing testimony of a 12-year-old rape victim.^[3] According to Grisham's official website, Grisham used his spare time to begin work on his first novel, which "explored what would have happened if the girl's father had murdered her assailants."^[3] He "spent three years on A Time to Kill and finished it in 1987. Initially rejected by many publishers, the manuscript was eventually bought by Wynwood Press, who gave it a modest 5,000-copy printing and published it in June 1988."^[3]

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."^[3] That second book, The Firm, became the 7th bestselling novel of 1991.^[4] Grisham then produced at least one work a year, most of them very popular bestsellers. He authored seven number-one bestselling novels of the year (1994, 1995, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2002, and 2005).^[5][6]

Beginning with A Painted House in 2001, the author broadened his focus from law to the more general rural south, while continuing to pen his legal thrillers.

Publishers Weekly declared Grisham "the bestselling novelist of the 90s," selling a total of 60,742,289 copies. He is also one of only a few authors to sell two million copies on a first printing; others include Tom Clancy and J.K. Rowling.^[7] Grisham's 1992 novel The Pelican Brief sold 11,232,480 copies in the United States alone.

[edit] Courtroom re-appearance

Grisham returned briefly to practice law during 1996 after a five-year hiatus. According to his official website, he "was honoring a commitment he made before he had retired from the law...representing the family of a railroad brakeman killed when he was pinned between two cars...Grisham successfully argued his clients' case, earning them a jury award of $683,500."^[3] Another tie to the legal community that he continues to hold is his seat on the Board of Directors for the Innocence Project, an organization dedicated to exonerating the innocent through DNA testing after they have been convicted.^[8]

[edit] Named in libel suit

On September 28, 2007, Grisham was named in a civil suit in a US District Court, claiming Grisham libeled Pontotoc County, Oklahoma, District Attorney Bill Peterson and Gary Rogers, a former Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation agent. Peterson and Rogers claim that Grisham, along with two other authors, conspired to defame their character through their books. The suit is based on Grisham's sole non-fiction book, The Innocent Man, a book about the investigation of the murder of a cocktail waitress in Ada, Oklahoma, and the exoneration by DNA evidence of Ron Williamson and Dennis Fritz more than 12 years later.^[9] Grisham's case was dismissed on September 18, 2008, by the judge who said "The wrongful convictions of Ron Williamson and Dennis Fritz must be discussed openly and with great vigor."^[10]

[edit] John Grisham Room

The Mississippi State University Libraries, Manuscript Division, maintains the John Grisham Room, an archive containing materials generated during the author's tenure as Mississippi State Representative and relating to his writings.^[11]

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 April 2004.^[12] He remains a fan of Mississippi State University's baseball team and wrote about his ties to the university and the Left Field Lounge in the introduction for the book Dudy Noble Field: A Celebration of MSU Baseball.

Grisham is also well known within the literary community for his efforts to support the continuing literary tradition of his native South. Grisham has endowed scholarships and writer's residencies in the University of Mississippi's English Department and Graduate Creative Writing Program, and was the founding publisher of the Oxford American, a magazine devoted to literary writing and famous for its annual music issue and copies of which include a compilation CD featuring contemporary and classic Southern musicians in genres ranging from blues and gospel to country-western and alternative rock.

In an October 2006 interview on the Charlie Rose Show, Grisham stated that he usually takes only six months to write a book and that his favorite author was John le Carré.

[edit] Family life

Grisham describes himself as a "moderate Baptist," and has performed mission service for his church in Brazil; that country provides the setting for two of his novels: The Testament, which has a strong religious theme; and The Partner. He lives with his wife Renée Jones and their two children, Ty and Shea. Grisham's website states that the "family splits their time between their Victorian home on a farm" outside Oxford, Mississippi, "and a home near Charlottesville, Virginia."^[3] In 2008, he and Renee bought a condo in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.^[13]

[edit] Books

[edit] Legal fiction

• A Time to Kill (1989)
• The Firm (1991)
• The Pelican Brief (1992)
• The Client (1993)
• The Chamber (1994)
• The Rainmaker (1995)
• The Runaway Jury (1996)
• The Partner (1997)
• The Street Lawyer (1998)
• The Testament (1999)
• The Brethren (2000)
• The Summons (2002)
• The King of Torts (2003)
• The Last Juror (2004)
• The Broker (2005)
• The Appeal (2008)
• The Associate (2009)

[edit] Non-legal fiction

• A Painted House (2001)
• Skipping Christmas (2001)
• Bleachers (2003)
• Playing for Pizza (2007)
• Ford County (2009)

[edit] Non-fiction

• The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town (2006)

[edit] Films based on his novels

• The Firm (1993)
• The Pelican Brief (1993)
• The Client (1994)
• A Time to Kill (1996)
• The Chamber (1996)
• The Rainmaker (1997)
• The Gingerbread Man (1998) Based on an unpublished short story
• A Painted House (2003)
• Runaway Jury (2003)
• Christmas with the Kranks (2004) Based on the novel 'Skipping Christmas'
• The Associate (2012)

[edit] Quotes

• "My success was not planned, but it could only happen in America."
• "Everything I'm thinking about writing now is about politics or social issues wrapped around a novel."
• "I'm a famous writer in a country where nobody reads."
• "You guys have forgotten about my favorite story, Marc Dreier. I haven’t seen a Dreier story in weeks. But it’s incredible. Pretending to be someone else? Taking over a conference room? I knew something was wrong when I read about his 120-foot yacht. When you’ve got a yacht that big you’re living like a billionaire. And you can’t do that as a New York lawyer. I don’t care how big your firm is... And I couldn’t make it any better. I couldn’t improve on it. The sushi restaurant (Dreier) owned? All the cars? The secretaries making $200,000 a year? It’s too much. When I see stuff like that my imagination just goes into overdrive"^[14]

[edit] See also

Find more about John Grisham on Wikipedia's sister projects:

Definitions from Wiktionary
Textbooks from Wikibooks
Quotations from Wikiquote
Source texts from Wikisource
Images and media from Commons
News stories from Wikinews
Learning resources from Wikiversity

• The Innocence Project
• List of bestselling novels in the United States

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Official website
• Official UK website
• Fansite
• John Grisham at the Internet Movie Database
• InnerVIEWS with Ernie Manouse: John Grisham (TV Interview)
• John Grisham Biography
• Works by or about John Grisham in libraries (WorldCat catalog)

[edit] Further reading

• Donald E. Wilkes, Jr., Kafka (and Grisham) in Oklahoma (2007).