Long before his name became synonymous with the modern legal
thriller, John Grisham 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 DeSoto 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 Firm, The
Pelican Brief, The Client, The Chamber, The Rainmaker, The Runaway
Jury, The Partner, The Street Lawyer, The Testament, The Brethren,
A Painted House, Skipping Christmas, The Summons, The King of
Torts, Bleachers, The Last Juror, The Broker, Playing for
Pizza, and The Appeal) and all of them have become
international bestsellers. There are currently over 225 million
John Grisham books in print worldwide, which have been translated
into 29 languages. Nine of his novels have been turned into films
(The Firm, The Pelican Brief, The Client, A Time to Kill, The
Rainmaker, The Chamber, A Painted House, The Runaway Jury, and
Skipping Christmas), as was an original screenplay, The
Gingerbread Man. The Innocent Man (October 2006) marked
his first foray into non-fiction.
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 most recently his Rebuild The Coast Fund, which raised
8.8 million dollars for Gulf Coast relief in the wake of Hurricane
Katrina. 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.
"Grisham's pleasure in relating the
Byzantine complexities of Clanton (Mississippi) politics
is contagious and he tells a good story...An enjoyable
book." -- Library Journal.
"Grisham excels!" -- Dallas Times Herald.
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