John Grisham

John Grisham (born February 8, 1955, Jonesboro, Arkansas, U.S.) is an American writer, attorney, and politician whose legal thrillers often top best-seller lists and are adapted for film. In the late 20th century, Grisham became one of the fastest-selling writers of modern fiction, a reputation that continued into the 21st century.

Legal career, A Time to Kill, and The Firm

Grisham grew up in Southaven, Mississippi. After he was admitted to the Mississippi bar in 1981, he practiced law and served (1984–89) as a Democrat in the Mississippi state legislature. Then, inspired by a trial he observed in 1984, Grisham took three years to write his first novel, A Time to Kill (1989; film 1996), which deals with the legal, social, and moral repercussions when a Mississippi Black man is tried for the murder of two white men who raped his 10-year-old daughter. Despite good reviews for its skillfully crafted dialogue and sense of place, the novel failed to sell.

Grisham vowed to “take a naked stab at commercial fiction” with his next novel, The Firm (1991; film 1993, TV series 2012), about a law school graduate who is seduced into joining a Memphis law firm that turns out to be a front for the Mafia. The selling of the film rights prompted a bidding war for publishing rights, and within weeks of the book’s release it appeared on The New York Times best-seller list, where it stayed for nearly a year, allowing Grisham to give up his law practice and move with his family to a farm in Oxford, Mississippi. In the meantime, A Time to Kill, reissued in paperback, sold more than three million copies.

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The Pelican Brief and The Client

Grisham wrote his third novel—The Pelican Brief (1992; film 1993), about a female law student investigating the assassinations of two Supreme Court justices—in only three months. There were 5.5 million copies of the book in print by March 1993. Film rights to the novel were sold for more than $1 million. Another novel, The Client (1993; film 1994), sacrificed roller-coaster suspense for humor and slapstick energy. Critics almost universally agreed that the plot, dealing with an 11-year-old boy who uncovers a mob-related murder plot, read as though it had been tailor-made for the screen. Indeed, the film rights to the novel sold for $2.5 million, while the novel itself sold 2.6 million copies within 15 weeks.

Other novels

Grisham continued his success with such titles as The Chamber (1994; film 1996), The Rainmaker (1995; film 1997), The Runaway Jury (1996; film 2003), and The Testament (1999).

In 2001 Grisham detoured from his formulaic legal thrillers with A Painted House (television film 2003), the story of a farm boy from rural Arkansas who discovers a troubling secret in his small town. Other nonlegal novels followed, including Skipping Christmas (2001; film 2004 as Christmas with the Kranks), Bleachers (2003), Playing for Pizza (2007), Calico Joe (2012), and Sooley (2021). The crime thrillers Camino Island (2017) and Camino Winds (2020) center on a female writer in Florida. In 2024 Grisham published Camino Ghosts, the third book in his Camino Series.

However, Grisham also maintained his steady output of legal fiction, with The Summons (2002), The Last Juror (2004), The Appeal (2008), The Litigators (2011), The Racketeer (2012), and Gray Mountain (2014) among his later works in the genre. In Sycamore Row (2013)—a follow-up to A Time to Kill, centering on the lawyer from that book, Jake Brigance—Grisham returned to the racial politics that drove the events of the first novel, this time examining their impact on a case involving a contested will. Rogue Lawyer (2015) chronicles the adventures of a criminal defense attorney who enjoys taking on seemingly hopeless cases, and The Whistler (2016) is about judicial misconduct. The Rooster Bar (2017) centers on three law students struggling with debt who discover that both their school and their student-loan bank are owned by a questionable Wall Street investor.

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Grisham’s later legal thrillers include The Reckoning (2018), about a decorated World War II soldier who kills a pastor after returning to Mississippi, and The Guardians (2019), in which a lawyer attempts to exonerate a man convicted of murder. In A Time for Mercy (2020), Grisham continued the story of Jake Brigance, who defends a teenager accused of murder. He also published The Judge’s List (2021); Sparring Partners (2022); a collection of novellas; and The Boys from Biloxi (2022). In 2023 Grisham released The Exchange, a sequel to The Firm.

Nonfiction, short fiction, and YA books

Grisham’s first nonfiction book, The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town (2006), explores a 1982 murder case that resulted in two Oklahoma men being wrongfully sentenced to death row. His second nonfiction book, Framed, about 10 cases of wrongful convictions, was scheduled to be released in October 2024.

In 2009 Grisham published the short-story collection Ford County. The following year saw Theodore Boone: Kid Lawyer, the first installment in a series of young-adult (YA) novels. Its sequels include Theodore Boone: The Abduction (2011), Theodore Boone: The Accused (2012), Theodore Boone: The Activist (2013), Theodore Boone: The Fugitive (2015), Theodore Boone: The Scandal (2016), and Theodore Boone: The Accomplice (2019).