John Grisham (1955– )

John Ray Grisham was born February 8, 1955, in Jonesboro, Arkansas, the second of five children. His father, a construction worker and cotton farmer, and his mother, a homemaker, moved the family several times, settling in Southaven in 1967. Grisham graduated from Southaven High School, where he played football, a sport which has figured in several of his novels. He attended Mississippi State University in Starkville, where, in 1977, he received a bachelor of science degree in accounting. In 1981, he earned his law degree from the University of Mississippi in Oxford.

Grisham began his career with a small law practice in Southaven. While working long hours as a criminal defense and personal injury attorney, he completed his first book, A Time to Kill (1989). The novel, inspired by testimony he heard in court about a twelve-year-old rape victim, went on to become a bestseller and was made into a popular film. Grisham sold the film rights to his second novel, The Firm, to Paramount Pictures for $600,000 before the book itself was published. The Firm went on to spend forty-seven weeks on the New York Times bestseller list; it was, moreover, the top selling novel of 1991. The 1993 film adaptation was directed by Sydney Pollack and starred Tom Cruise and Gene Hackman.

Grisham's literary output has been prolific; his list of international bestsellers includes The Pelican Brief (1992), The Rainmaker (1995), The Chamber (1994), and The Runaway Jury (1996). Nine of his novels have been made into films. He has also written a screenplay under the pseudonym Al Hayes (The Gingerbread Man), and a nonfiction book, The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town (2006). His writing has also begun to branch out beyond dramatic novels. The novel A Painted House (2001) was inspired by his childhood in Arkansas; Bleachers (2003) is about a high school football coach; and Playing for Pizza (2007) follows an aging football star who signs on to play for an Italian team.

Title: The Last Juror
(cover)
Source: HarperCollins Publishers
More informationGrisham's thrillers have been praised by reviewers as "page-turners" with "rattling good" stories. Writing in the New York Times about The Pelican Brief, Frank J. Prial noted that "John Grisham hates lawyers. Really hates them"—a response to the plots of Grisham's mass-market books, many of which portray the law profession as corrupt and its practitioners as cynical and villainous. Reviewers have been less kind toward Grisham's more literary efforts, with writer Christopher Dickey arguing in the New York Times that Grisham's novel A Painted House contained "thin" prose and a worldview that virtually erases African Americans from 1950s Arkansas. "What is this South without black people that Grisham has given us?" Dickey asked, acknowledging that Grisham had put race at the center of his first novel A Time to Kill. "It isn't in the South of Mark Twain or Harper Lee, certainly, or even of the early Grisham. It's not the South where he—or anyone else—grew up."

In April 1995, Grisham bought the struggling magazine The Oxford American, which had been founded in 1992 in Oxford, Mississippi. He took over as editor, and while the publication enjoyed a faithful following, it stopped publication in September 2001. (It is currently published in Arkansas under different ownership.) Grisham has also been involved in philanthropic and political activities. His Rebuild the Coast Fund raised $8.8 billion in relief after Hurricane Katrina in 2005 (the bulk of it going directly to victims of the storm); a contributor to the Democratic Party, he hosted a 2008 fund-raising party in Charlottesville for Hillary Clinton, a candidate for the Democratic nomination for U.S. president.

Grisham and his family divide their time between farms in Oxford, Mississippi, and Charlottesville. He participated in the latter city's Virginia Festival of the Book in 1997 and 2009, has given local readings, and delivered the 2007 commencement address at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. He is also the local Little League Commissioner, and has built six baseball fields on his property, where he hosts games.

Major Works

• 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)
• A Painted House (2001)
• Skipping Christmas (2001)
• The Summons (2002)
• The King of Torts (2003)
• Bleachers (2003)
• The Last Juror (2004)
• The Broker (2005)
• The Innocent Man (2006)
• Playing for Pizza (2007)
• The Appeal (2008)
• The Associate (2009)
• Ford County (2009)

Time Line

• February 8, 1955 - John Grisham is born in Jonesboro, Arkansas.
• 1967 - John Grisham's family settles in Southaven, Mississippi, after moving several times.
• 1977 - John Grisham receives a BS in accounting from Mississippi State University in Starkville.
• 1981 - John Grisham receives a law degree from the University of Mississippi in Oxford.
• 1989 - John Grisham's first novel, the legal thriller A Time to Kill, is published. He wrote it while working as a criminal defense and personal injury attorney in Southaven, Mississippi.
• 1991 - John Grisham's best-known novel, the legal thriller The Firm, is published. It goes on to be adapted into the 1993 feature film of the same name, starring Tom Cruise and Gene Hackman.