"A Time to Kill" by John Grisham (1989)

 

John Grisham is one of those people who apparently live and work very successfully completely outside of my orbit. I could name countless celebrities whose activities somehow absolutely don't interest me whatsoever, although I know they exist and they might be very important to millions. In a way, to me Grisham is like Beyoncé - I know she is out there somewhere, breaking all the records and selling tons of whatever she is selling, but I live my life without her interference. And just like out of curiosity I gave her a youtube listening, I decided to check out Grisham. In both cases, one dose was enough to make up my mind this is not for me.

"A Time to Kill" was this legendary debut that no one bought initially but it became huge success after his second novel "The Firm" established him as a best-selling author. It is made into a Hollywood movie and a theatre play. Basically it is a courtroom thriller. It is happening in a fictional little provincial town of Clanton, somewhere in  Mississippi, where court have to decide a fate of a father who killed the rapists of his ten year old daughter. This is American South so the race of the involved is very important - if the father was white and the rapists black, the situation would be clear but it is the other way around - the father is black and the rapists white. While the black community is on his side, KKK gets involved and the sleepy little town becomes magnet for journalists and even the National Guard. 

What really bugged me here was not the story - which was gripping enough for me to plough until the end - but the storytelling and Grisham's style. He introduces the characters, explains the story and than he goes on endless meandering about the law and how basically everybody is corrupted and can be manipulated one way or the other. It is clear that author has a background in a law but this has been rammed into our throats. As in "I know what I'm talking about". The worst of all, I just couldn't find one single character to connect to because they are all so one dimensional + the main character Jake Brigance is a very annoying, amoral and greedy lawyer who smugly gloats in media attention and love pressing the buttons of his court enemy district attorney. I find very hard to read the book where the main character is so decidedly arrogant. Honestly, if this is what Grisham is all about, I had enough.