biography of john grisham

John Grisham

Born on February 8, 1955, in Jonesboro, Arkansas, John Grisham worked as an attorney and Mississippi legislator before becoming a best-selling novelist with works like The Firm , The Pelican Brief  and A Time to Kill , all of which were turned into hit films. Grisham has continued to publish an array of titles, such as Bleachers  and The Litigators , and has also worked in screenwriting, as seen with the 2003 baseball film Mickey .

Background and Early Career

John Grisham Jr. was born on February 8, 1955 in Jonesboro, Arkansas. The second-oldest of five siblings, he developed a love for books early on. Grisham and his family moved around for a while, due to job opportunities for his father, who worked in construction, eventually settling in Southaven, Mississippi. Initially thinking of a pro baseball career and working a variety of jobs before college, Grisham went on to study accounting at Mississippi State University and then law at the University of Mississippi, graduating in 1981.

Grisham wed Renee Jones in May of that year, with the couple going on to have two children. After starting his law career as a tax attorney, Grisham set up a practice doing personal injury and criminal defense work in Southaven, and in 1983 he earned a seat in the state legislature on the Democratic ticket, serving through the rest of the decade.

Signs to House with 'The Firm'

During a trial in 1984, Grisham heard the horrifying details of a young girl recounting her experience of surviving rape. This catalyzed the attorney to start writing a novel that examined the issue, focusing on the actions of a fictional father and an attorney. The finished book, A Time to Kill , would initially get a 5,000-copy printing from Wynwood Press.

Array of Best Sellers

While writing his next novel,  The Pelican Brief , Grisham took the words of a retail chain executive to heart and made the commitment to complete a book a year. The Pelican Brief was published in 1992 and became a No. 1 New York Times best seller. In the coming years, Grisham followed with an array of hit titles, including The Client (1993), The  Runaway Jury (1996), Bleachers (2003), Playing for Pizza (2007) and The Litigators (2011), among many others. His Time to Kill sequel, Sycamore Row , was released in 2013. More recent titles include Gray Mountain (2014), Rogue Lawyer (2015) and The Whistler (2016).

Grisham has worked in other literary genres outside of the adult novel as well, as seen with his nonfiction work The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town (2006), the short-story collection Ford County and the young adult series  Theodore Boone .

Hit Film Adaptations

Besides The Firm , numerous other Grisham books have been turned into major big-screen ventures, including Pelican Brief (1993), The Client (1994), A Time to Kill (1996), The Chamber (1996), The Rainmaker (1997), Runaway Jury (2003) and Christmas with the Kranks (2004), which was based on Grisham's 2001 novel  Skipping Christmas . With a changing movie-industry climate, over time Grisham has increasingly turned to the world of television, with The Firm becoming a NBC series in 2012.

Grisham has continued to nurture his love for baseball, overseeing the construction of multiple baseball fields around his home and becoming a Little League commissioner. He has also provided funding for the Southern publication Oxford American .

QUICK FACTS

• Birth Year: 1955
• Birth date: February 8, 1955
• Birth State: Arkansas
• Birth City: Jonesboro
• Birth Country: United States
• Gender: Male
• Best Known For: John Grisham is a best-selling author known for many of his legal thrillers, such as ‘The Firm,’ ‘The Pelican Brief,’ ‘A Time to Kill’ and ‘The Runaway Jury.’
• Writing and Publishing
• Astrological Sign: Aquarius
• University of Mississippi
• Mississippi State University
• Occupations

We strive for accuracy and fairness.If you see something that doesn't look right, contact us !

CITATION INFORMATION

• Article Title: John Grisham Biography
• Author: Biography.com Editors
• Website Name: The Biography.com website
• Url: https://www.biography.com/authors-writers/john-grisham
• Access Date:
• Publisher: A&E; Television Networks
• Last Updated: April 16, 2019
• Original Published Date: March 2, 2015
• [Writing] was more difficult than laying asphalt, and at times more frustrating than selling underwear. But it paid off. Eventually, I was able to leave the law and quit politics. Writing’s still the most difficult job I’ve ever had — but it’s worth it.
• My name became a brand and I'd love to say it was the plan from the start. But the only plan was to keep writing books. And I've stuck to that ever since.
• I wanted to be Tom Sawyer. I loved that romanticized view of a kid's life. It wasn't until a lot later that I realized there was more going on with Tom and Huck than just an adventure.
• After you write 10 or 12 books in a certain genre, you think, 'OK, can I write something else, or am I locked in here?'
• ...if I can take the wrongful execution of a man in Texas to make people stop and think about this rush to execute people that we have in this country, I will. If I have access to a soapbox, then the least I can do is occasionally use it.

Famous Authors & Writers

9 Surprising Facts About Truman Capote

William Shakespeare

How Did Shakespeare Die?

Meet Stand-Up Comedy Pioneer Charles Farrar Browne

Francis Scott Key

Christine de Pisan

Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz

10 Famous Langston Hughes Poems

5 Crowning Achievements of Maya Angelou

10 Black Authors Who Shaped Literary History

The True Story of Feud:Capote vs. The Swans

• Member Interviews
• Science & Exploration
• Public Service
• Achiever Universe
• Summit Overview
• About The Academy
• Academy Patrons
• Delegate Alumni
• Directors & Our Team
• Golden Plate Awards Council
• Golden Plate Awardees
• Preparation
• Perseverance
• The American Dream
• Recommended Books
• Find My Role Model

All achievers

John grisham, bestselling author, i had a story. it was a courtroom drama. i was doing a lot of courtroom work. i was a very young lawyer. i was sort of consumed with this story. and one night i just said, ‘okay. i’m going to try to capture it, see what i can do with words.’ and that’s what happened..

John Grisham was born in Jonesboro, Arkansas. His father, a cotton farmer and itinerant construction worker, moved the family frequently, from town to town throughout the Deep South, settling in Southaven, Mississippi in 1967. Although his parents lacked formal education, his mother encouraged him to read and insisted that he prepare himself for college.

By his own account, John Grisham had no interest in writing until after he embarked on his professional career. For his first two years in college, he drifted. He attended three different colleges before earning a degree. After abandoning a youthful dream of a professional baseball career, he settled down to study accounting and prepare for a career as a tax lawyer. While in law school, his interest shifted from tax law to criminal law and litigation. After graduating from the University of Mississippi law school, he returned to Southaven and established a small private legal practice. He was elected to the Mississippi House of Representatives in 1983. By his second term he held the vice chairmanship of the Apportionment and Elections Committee, as well as memberships on the Insurance, Judiciary “A” and Military Affairs Committee.

In Mississippi, attorneys in private practice are sometimes called upon to appear as public defenders for indigent clients. In this way, Grisham received invaluable experience of the criminal justice system. Inspired by a case he observed in a Mississippi courthouse, Grisham decided to write a novel. For years, he arrived at his office at five o’clock in the morning, six days a week, to work on his first book, A Time To Kill. His manuscript was rejected by 28 publishers before he found an unknown publisher who was willing to print a short run. Without the benefit of a major publisher’s marketing apparatus, the novice author went directly to booksellers, encouraging them to stock his book.

Although A Time to Kill  only sold a disappointing 5,000 copies, Grisham had already begun work on a second novel,  The Firm . At the same time, bored with the routine of the state capital and eager to spend more time with his family, he decided not to seek re-election to the state legislature. He closed his office in Southaven and moved his family to Oxford, Mississippi, hoping to concentrate on his writing.

At age 36, his career as a novelist bloomed when movie rights to The Firm were sold for a hefty price, even before the book had found a publisher. The Firm sold more than seven million copies and spent 47 weeks on The New York Times bestseller list. With the success of The Firm , John Grisham finally gave up his law practice to write full-time. He has returned to the practice of law on only one occasion since, in 1996, to win a settlement for the family of a railroad worker killed on the job. Meanwhile, he has continued to write enormously successful legal thrillers at the rate of nearly one a year. As of this writing, seven of his books — The Chamber , The Rainmaker , The Street Lawyer , The Testament , The Brethren , The Summons and The Broker — were the bestselling novels of their respective years.

Beginning in 2001, Grisham has occasionally departed from the format of the legal thriller to write works of fiction on other subjects, particularly baseball and life in the rural South. The first of these was A Painted House , followed by Skipping Christmas , Bleachers and Playing for Pizza . His 2009 book of short stories, Ford County , returned to the setting of his first novel. Nine of Grisham’s tales have been adapted for film and television, including The Firm , The Pelican Brief , The Client , The Rainmaker , along with his original screenplay The Gingerbread Man . The film version of Skipping Christmas was re-titled Christmas with the Kranks .

Today, John Grisham and his wife, Renee Jones, keep homes in Oxford, Mississippi and near Charlottesville, Virginia. Apart from his writing, Grisham is a generous supporter of Little League teams in Oxford and Charlottesville and has endowed a writing scholarship at the University of Mississippi.

Grisham’s nonfiction book,  The Innocent Man (2006), recounted the real-life case of Ron Williamson, a former professional baseball player sentenced to death for a murder he did not commit. Williamson was eventually released; his case exposed glaring inadequacies in the criminal justice system. John Grisham is also a board member of the Innocence Project, an organization that promotes the use of DNA evidence to exonerate the wrongly convicted. He has spoken and written publicly against America’s high rates of incarceration and is an outspoken opponent of capital punishment.

Despite these interests and activities, Grisham has not stopped producing bestselling novels, such as The Associate and The Confession , or his 2011 comic novel,  The Litigators . In 2010, he initiated a continuing series of novels for younger readers with Theodore Boone, Kid Lawyer . In addition to the baseball-themed 2012 novel,  Calico Joe , he has continued to craft highly successful thrillers, including The Racketeer , Sycamore Row , Gray Mountain , Rogue Lawyer and The Whistler.  Camino Island , published in 2017, introduced a new type of hero in Grisham’s fiction. Bookseller Bruce Cable, a dealer in rare books, is drawn into a web of intrigue following the theft of treasured manuscripts from Princeton University.

His 2018 novel The Reckoning — a combination of courtroom drama and Gothic family saga — immediately landed in the number one position on The New York Times bestseller lists for both hardcover fiction and in the combined print and e-book category.  Grisham published his 40th novel, The Guardians in October 2019, introducing a new protagonist: Cullen Post, an attorney who is also an Episcopal priest, seeking justice for the wrongly convicted. The Guardians, too, debuted at number one on The New York Times bestseller list.

Grisham returned to the imaginary setting of Camino Island in the 2020 novel Camino Winds , in which his bookseller hero Bruce Cable is called upon to solve the murder of a crime novelist, a crime committed under cover of a tropical storm.  Not surprisingly, the book debuted in first place on T he New York Times bestseller list.

Later that year, Grisham published A Time For Mercy, in which he revives the hero of his first novel, small-town lawyer Jake Brigance, who is called to defend a minor accused of killing a sheriff’s deputy. In October 2023, John Grisham is set to captivate readers with his highly anticipated novel, The Exchange , a sequel to the book that catapulted him to literary stardom over 30 years ago, The Firm . Grisham’s storytelling prowess shines in this new installment, where he revisits the character Mitch McDeere, now wealthy and living as an international lawyer in New York City.

“I find myself taking long walks on my farm with my wife, Renee, wondering what in the world happened,” says Grisham.

Today he one of the world’s bestselling authors, but John Grisham showed no early interest in writing. One day in 1984, three years after Grisham began practicing law in Southaven, Mississippi, he dropped by the courthouse to observe a trial. “This ten-year-old girl was testifying against a man who had raped her and left her for dead,” he says. “I never felt such emotion and human drama in my life. I became obsessed wondering what it would be like if the girl’s father killed that rapist and was put on trial. I had to write it down.”

Grisham has hardly stopped writing since then. Grisham’s first novel, A Time To Kill, was published in 1989 and sold a mere 5,000 copies. But his second, The Firm , the story of a law school grad recruited by a firm with mob connections, spent a spectacular 47 weeks on The New York Times bestseller list. Once Grisham started writing, he never stopped. Every year brings a new bestseller from the master of the legal thriller. Many of his works, including The Firm , The Pelican Brief , The Client and The Rainmaker have been made into successful motion pictures.  Read all over the world, his books have sold more that 300 million copies.

When did you decide to start writing?

The writing has come fairly late in life. I never dreamed of being a writer when I was a kid, even a student, even in college. In fact, I’d been practicing law for about three or four years in the early ’80s, when I decided to make a stab at writing a story that I’d been thinking about. And the story eventually became A Time to Kill.

What inspired you to begin with?

John Grisham: When I started all this, my motives were pure. I was not driven by greed or money. I had a story. It was a courtroom drama. I was doing a lot of courtroom work; I was a very young lawyer. But I was handling a lot of court-appointed criminal cases, in trial a lot. And I knew the criminal system, and I knew a lot about it. So I came up with a story about a murder trial, and some of it was based on personal experience, most of it was not. And I kept telling myself, I would like to be the lawyer who defended a father who murdered the two guys who raped his daughter. I think that would be a fascinating case. One thing led to another, and I was sort of consumed with this story. And one night I just said, “Okay. I’m going to try to capture it, see what I can do with words.” And that’s what happened.

It took three years to write it, and I was very disciplined about doing it. It was very much a hobby. By the time I finished it, I had developed a routine of writing every day. When I finished it, I went to the next book, which was The Firm. Once that was written, everything started changing. I wouldn’t use the word “accident,” but it certainly wasn’t planned. I never dreamed of it.

You found the time to write, so you must have been pretty motivated.

John Grisham: The bulk of the first two books, A Time to Kill and The Firm, those books were written over a five-year period, back-to-back, from about 1984 to about 1989. The bulk was written at five o’clock in the morning, from five ’til seven in the morning. I’d get up and go to the office that early. And again, it wasn’t any fun, but it was a habit. It got to be part of the daily routine. And I remember several times being in court at nine o’clock in the morning, really tired, because writing takes a lot out of you. It’s draining. And I would do it for an hour or two in the morning, and get ready for court, and go to court. Be standing, waiting for the judge, and be really tired.

Was there a moment in your career that really stands out as a turning point?

John Grisham: There have been some wonderful phone calls from New York. The biggest phone call yet was the first time, a truly magical moment. After a year of being turned down, my agent called one day in April of ’88 and said, “We have a publisher for A Time to Kill. It’s going to be a book.” At that point it had been turned down by 30-something publishers. Everybody had said no to it. He found a very small press in New York, and they wanted to buy it. That was a huge moment.

Another time, he called and said, “We’ve sold the film rights to The Firm to Paramount.” It was totally unexpected, because at that time there was no book deal, it was just in manuscript form. Those are big moments. I don’t know if you sort of get jaded, or callous to success, but it’s still terribly exciting. It’s still hard to believe.

The Firm was published four years ago, so it’s been awfully quick. The Firm was not the first book, but it was the first book anybody read. My career is still in its infancy and it still feels brand new. Something happens every day that makes me stop and try to remember where I am and what’s happening.

Tell us about your family and your friends.

John Grisham: It’s easy to remember friends.

When A Time to Kill was published, it was an unknown author, unknown book, unknown publisher. There was no money for promotion, so I tried to sell the book myself. And I went to a lot of book stores in the Memphis, mid-South area, and a lot of them had no time, you know? They didn’t want a new author, especially one with a publisher they’d never heard of. But there were a handful who opened their doors and said, “Sure, come in. We’ll try to sell some books, and we’ll have a party, and we’ll invite all of our customers.”

And, you know, it’s hard to forget people like that. And it’s fun now. I go back every time. I’ve gone back with every book. There are five stores. I call them — they’re my home stores. These are friends of mine, and I can’t imagine publishing a book and not going back to their stores. I mean, now the book signings last for, you know, ten or 12 hours, but you know, it’s still fun. It’s tiring, but it’s only once a year. I don’t do it every day. And there are worse things in life than signing lots of copies of your own books. I’m still gratified that people show up and wait in line to get a book signed.

And, you know…

The pressure of really sudden notoriety and success, it’s good and bad. I mean, it’s something you think you’d like to have, and it’s something that’s nice. There are a lot of rewards. The good far outweighs the bad. But you catch yourself trying to remember what’s important to you, your friends and families and what you enjoyed doing years before. We have two small children, and we had a life before all this happened. And even then — we call it BF, before The Firm, that’s how we judge time — everything we did revolved around the kids, and it’s still that way. We’ve sort of regrouped as a family, and we kind of stick to ourselves, with a few friends. It makes you appreciate the friends you had, because now everybody wants to be friends. It makes you deeply appreciative of the people who are truly friends. We’ve stayed away from the success. We live in Mississippi, and in Virginia. We live in both places, but it’s country living. We try to keep it simple, and we stay away from Hollywood, New York and all those places where the attention really is.

Did you have any conception of the kind of success that you’ve come to?

John Grisham: It’s been one book at a time. A Time to Kill was published, but nobody bought it. About the time it was published, I was finished with The Firm. The Firm slowly became a bestseller when it was published. While it was getting this attention, I was writing the next book, which was The Pelican Brief.

Each book has built on the other. Then the movies came along and added a much heavier layer of fame and notoriety, and pressure. It’s just snowballed, but there’s no way I could have predicted that, because I can’t predict what’s going to happen next year with the movies and the books. I don’t have a feel for everything that’s coming.

My parents did not have the benefit of college. They didn’t get to go to college. They were from a very rural part of the Deep South, where most of my relatives were from. College to them was always a dream. For us, it was always a requirement. We knew — because they told us — we’d go to college. And they worked very hard to pay for it, and to provide it for all of five kids. And I was the first member of my family to finish college, and to get a graduate degree in law, and to start practicing law. And for the family, that was a source of immense pride. To me, that’s the American Dream, for one generation to keep building the dream for later generations.

• 39 photos

John Grisham Is Still Battling His Southern Demons

By David Marchese June 21, 2022

• Share full article

“It was such a hard-right-wing, racist society that I grew up in. I’ve come a long way.”

By David Marchese

There are very few constants in life — and it sure feels as if the number is shrinking — but one thing readers of popular fiction can count on is that every year will bring a new John Grisham book, or two. With his latest, “Sparring Partners,” the prolific and megaselling novelist is offering his humble version of a changeup. The book, his 47th, is the 67-year-old’s first collection of novellas. It includes three separate stories, one of which features his old standby Southern-lawyer character Jake Brigance. But while his professional life has been marked by a certain steadfastness, his personal and political evolution wasn’t quite so smooth. “I’ve come a long way,” says Grisham, who was a lawyer and a politician before turning to writing. “Once I became a lawyer, most of my clients were poor people, working people, minority people who had no money. We were on one side of the street. On the other side of the street were the people with money. Real quick I realized where I stood in life and where I was going to be in life.”

With the exception of “Strawberry Moon,” the material in the new book feels to me like the kind of plots and subject matter that you normally render at full length. And, to be crass, I’ve also heard that novellas don’t sell as well as novels. So why opt for the form? Over the years, these stories keep lying around, and I realized that the birthdays are piling up and the stories are not being written. So, I said, OK, I’m going to pick out my three favorites and finish them. I’m tired of thinking about them. I emailed Stephen King and said, “You’ve done several collections of novellas; how did it work?” He said he also had a lot of stories, you’re not going to be able to write them all as novels, some don’t work as short stories, so you do something in the middle. That’s how it all came to pass. I can play around with a baseball book or a football book or short stories or a kids’ book in my spare time, but I know my readers want the legal thriller every fall.

When you know you’ve got to deliver a big new legal thriller every fall — and in between you’re often writing those other books — are you ever able to abandon an idea that isn’t working? Or do you just have to find a way to make it work? I’ve never had the situation where I wrote myself into a corner I couldn’t get out of. At the same time, with every book I reach a point late in the game where I have doubts about the story and get nervous, even frightened, about Who’s going to believe this stuff? I’m going through it right now with “The Boys From Biloxi.” My goal each year with each legal thriller is to write about 100,000 words. That’s going to produce a novel, when published, that’s about 350 pages. To me, that’s ideal. You don’t need a big thick book for a thriller. “The Boys From Biloxi” — I’m at 120,000 right now and sweating, because I have a lot left to cover to get to the end. So, yeah, those are issues that come up. But I cannot squeeze a novel out of every idea. A perfect example is the opioid crisis. It’s right down my alley because it’s tons of litigation, corporate bad behavior, all kinds of bad guys. I’ve been itching to write that book, but I haven’t been able to get my head around a story that I could do in 100,000 words. It’s just so big. Guantánamo’s another one. I’ve been collecting research for 20 years. We’ve kept prisoners down there for 15 years without charging them with any crime. There’s a lot of lawyers who spend time down there trying to correct a terrible situation. It’s also right down my alley because it’s the legal system, but again, I can’t get my head around that story.

This is a little left-field, but I was fascinated by the fact that as a young man, you held office in the Mississippi Legislature. Could the 28-year-old version of you be elected in Mississippi today? At that time I was — I’m not going to say conservative. I was a moderate Democrat. Today that person doesn’t exist in the South. If I ran today, I would hope that I would run as a progressive Democrat — and I would not be elected. I have friends who hold public office in Mississippi who had to switch from Democrat to Republican to keep their jobs. If you have the D by your name, you’re not going to be elected. It has changed dramatically in the last 30 years. Also, it ought to be against the law in any state for a 28-year-old to be elected to the state legislature. I see these guys — the guy from North Carolina?

Madison Cawthorn. Yeah. Just got beat. It shows you what happens when a 26-year-old who’s off leash gets elected. He needed to be called home. You’ve got to be at least 30 years old and have some maturity before you get that job. I didn’t do any damage in my eight years, but there’s not much of a record to brag about. I didn’t do a lot of good.

What was the most morally difficult decision you had to make as a politician or a practicing lawyer? I’ll tell you a story. A 15-year-old girl in my church got pregnant. Her parents were devastated. Strict Southern Baptist. Small town. They were terrified people were going to find out. They came to me before they went to the minister because they were talking about adoption, the laws. Abortion terrified them. The father was 15 years old, too, so getting married was out of the question. I remember thinking, These people are leaning on me way too much. I was a 27-year-old kid, one year out of law school. They think I’m wise. I’m not ready for this. The parents weren’t a whole lot older than I was — in their early 40s, I guess. They reached a point where they trusted me, and I’m thinking, I don’t want to be in this room. I finally said: “Let’s get the minister involved. You people need help big time, and I’m not giving it to you.” My point is, I realized that on the abortion issue, that was a decision to be made by that family — that girl and the parents and nobody else. Nobody else should be in the room.

Including the government? No government, no lawmaker, no judge. That’s when I began to realize what’s at stake with abortion. I’m opposed to abortion. I didn’t want her to get an abortion, because the baby was going to be healthy — and the baby did make a great gift for someone else. She was able to leave and go live with an aunt in another town, have the baby well cared for, adopt it out. She came back, the family rallied, the church rallied. Made the best of a bad situation, and somebody got a beautiful baby. But there were times when I was thinking the quickest solution would be an abortion. I didn’t say that, but it was a quandary I was in because I was getting way too much input. That had a big impact on me as a lawyer, because you realize the influence you have. The law degree is a powerful tool. You can do a lot of good things. That’s the fun part of being a lawyer, when you help people. I was not a very good lawyer.

Why not? You’ve got to be kind of tough on the business end, and I could never say no to people who were in trouble, especially people I knew in the community. When you take everything that walks in the door, you’re going to go broke. That was my downfall. At the same time, I had strong ambitions about being a skilled courtroom lawyer. That was my goal, inspired by some great old-fashioned country trial lawyers in Mississippi I knew. I was never afraid of going to court. Most lawyers are. A lot of them are afraid to try a case in front of a jury, but I thrived on that. I dreamed of being so good that people with really good cases — injury cases or wrongful-death cases or medical-malpractice cases — would come to me and I would have the chance to make some money, which I never did.

You said that you’re opposed to abortion. For religious reasons? I’ve just never been able to stomach the idea of abortion on demand or women having multiple abortions just because they get pregnant. And I’ve always thought that late-term abortion, partial-birth abortions were something that we should not tolerate because the fetus is viable. I’ve always been turned off by that notion of abortion. I guess it’s probably religious grounds. But at the same time you don’t know what you’re going to do until you’re in that situation. That’s when it becomes a matter of choice.

What political positions did you hold when you were 28 that you don’t hold now? Death penalty, for sure.

You used to believe in it? Big time. I’m in favor of tougher gun control. I am much more suspicious of the police and prosecutors because I’ve seen so many wrongful convictions. Also, race relations: I grew up in the Jim Crow South. A very segregated, racist society was almost in my DNA. It’s a long struggle to overcome that and to look back at the way I was raised and not be resentful toward my parents and other people who helped raise me for their extreme racism. It was such a hard right-wing, racist society that I grew up in. The Baptist Church was that way too back then. I’ve come a long way. I have a lot of friends and even kinfolk who never tried to move beyond the racism. But I try every day. It’s been an ongoing, gradual transformation. My wife was another factor, because she grew up in North Carolina, and it was not as hard-core racist as Mississippi. She and her parents were much more tolerant. So she had a big influence on me. You know, we’re all tribalists. We all want to be around our people or believe in our people, and it’s often too hard to get beyond that. It’s still a struggle for me.

Has your sense of the South as a literary setting changed? To my mind, the open resurgence of racist violence makes a book like “A Time to Kill” read even more disturbingly today than it did when I first read it in the mid-90s. It’s changed in many ways. That story is based on an actual assault that happened in the 1970s in a small town not too far from where I lived and went to law school. When I wrote that story, I was 30 years old and had never written before. I can’t tell you there was a lot of careful forethought with “A Time to Kill.” I didn’t think about the portrayal of Southern Blacks and Southern whites in a small town. That was just my world. At the same period of time, in 1988, I was back from my second term at the Legislature. We had a progressive young governor, a progressive young House speaker. We thought finally Mississippi could change things. We were on the cusp of this progressive revolution. We believed it. Thirty-four years later, it’s astonishing how far backward the state has gone. The politics there are very displeasing to me.

Let me shift gears: This could be apocryphal, but I heard that you and Michael Crichton used to have some one-upmanship over money. Each of you wanted to be paid a dollar more than the other guy. Is that true? In the 1990s, for about five years in a row, my agent would take my latest manuscript — “Pelican Brief,” “The Client,” “The Chamber,” “The Rainmaker” — to Hollywood, get the studios in a room and have an auction. And when they paid, they paid millions . I don’t know what was actually said because I wasn’t there, but it was like, “Crichton got this amount; we want more.” It was back and forth. We were gaming the system big time. It was working beautifully — until it stopped. I sold the film rights to “The Runaway Jury” in 1996 to New Regency for a record amount. I can’t get a fraction of that today. You can say, Well, we choked the golden goose, but all those films made money. Then Hollywood changed. I don’t understand that world. Nobody understands that world. There’s no rules. We learned years ago, do not believe a word until they start filming. “Runaway Jury” was actually the last big contract I got. I helped write the script, which was a huge mistake. Joel Schumacher was the director. We had Sean Connery, Gwyneth Paltrow, Edward Norton ready to start filming. It was a done deal, and Joel Schumacher jumped off the bus. The whole cast walked away. It took years to make that movie.

Why was it a mistake to work on the script? I’m not a screenwriter. It’s not something I enjoy doing. One of the most frustrating parts is the teamwork. You get notes from people who don’t have a clue, who do not understand the basics of storytelling. You wonder if they even make movies. The worst note I got — it’s a great story. In 1993, ’94, somewhere in there, “The Firm,” “The Pelican Brief” and “The Client” came out in the span of about 12 months. All three books were at the top of the list, along with “A Time to Kill,” which had been rediscovered. Things were hopping. I was finishing “The Chamber,” and this was a stupid thing we did: A big-time Hollywood guy said, “OK, we want to buy your next book right now sight unseen.” I sent the manuscript, what I had, and this studio honcho read the first draft of an incomplete manuscript and wasn’t too crazy about it. Which really pissed me off. Suddenly this guy’s a literary critic? He sent a faxed note, I believe, to my agent at the time and said, “We can’t buy this book for a movie unless Grisham will promise three love scenes and a happy ending.” [Laughs.] If I ever write a Hollywood tell-all, that’s the title of my book: “Three Love Scenes and a Happy Ending.”

Do you think about your critical legacy as a writer? When you get started in the business and you have some success, like I did with “The Firm,” you want to be taken seriously as a writer, but you have to be honest with yourself. You can’t sell books and be loved by critics. It’s not going to happen. There are very few literary authors who sell a lot of books. The best seller for a literary novel is 25,000 copies. Fifty max. If you do sell a lot of books, you’re dismissed by critics. So I decided a long time ago, I’ll take the money and run. You talk about legacy? I don’t care. I’m going to be dead and gone.

This interview has been edited and condensed from two conversations.

David Marchese is a staff writer for the magazine and the Talk columnist.

Explore The New York Times Magazine

A Playwright Reimagines America: In her new play, “Sally & Tom,” Suzan-Lori Parks brings exuberant provocation  to the gravest historical questions.

The New Mood Music: The Texan trio Khruangbin’s vibes  have spawned countless imitators, but their magic isn’t so easy to replicate.

Inside a Media-Fighting Law Firm: Tensions had been brewing for years inside Clare Locke, a top defamation law firm. Then came the biggest defamation case of them all : a case against Fox News.

Is Corporate America in Denial?: Despite Donald Trump’s populist promises , many bigwigs are keeping the faith that it couldn’t really happen here.

Larry David’s Rule Book: He’s a wild, monomaniacal jerk . He’s also our greatest interpreter of American manners since Emily Post.

Inside The National Enquirer : An ex-editor at the tabloid reveals the story of the notorious “catch and kill” campaign  that now stands at the heart of Donald Trump’s’s legal trial.

Advertisement

• Australia edition
• International edition
• Europe edition

A life in writing: John Grisham

I n the mid 1980s John Grisham , then a small-town lawyer and disillusioned member of the Mississippi state legislature, would fill the time between meetings and court hearings writing a novel about an ambitious young lawyer embroiled in a life-or-death fight for truth and justice. "It took me three years, and most of the time I thought I would never finish it. Eventually 5,000 hardback copies were printed and I was thrilled. But they did not sell out, it did not get a second edition, it was not published in paperback or picked up for foreign rights. Then I wrote The Firm …"

The Firm , Grisham's 1991 story of another young lawyer in a jam, was on the New York Times bestseller lists for 44 weeks, sold more than 7m copies and was made into a feature film starring Tom Cruise. "My first publishing experience was entirely normal and my second entirely abnormal," he says. "I responded much better to the second experience than I did to the first."

And, for Grisham at least, the "abnormality" of The Firm 's commercial success soon became the norm. His subsequent series of legal thrillers has gone on to sell close to 300m copies and been translated into 40 languages. Nine of his novels have been turned into films starring A-list actors such as Julia Roberts, Gene Hackman, Sandra Bullock, Susan Sarandon and Dustin Hoffman. They have been directed by Sydney Pollack, Francis Ford Coppola, Joel Schumacher and Alan J Pakula. Grisham regularly features on literary rich lists with an estimated fortune of $600m and an annual income in the tens of millions. For most of the 1990s Grisham Day, when his new book went on sale, was a fixed point of the publishing year – to be avoided by other publishers and celebrated by bookshops.

"My name became a brand and I'd love to say it was the plan from the start," he says. "But the only plan was to keep writing books. And I've stuck to that ever since." His 24th, The Litigators , was published in the UK in October. Lighter in tone than much of his work, it features a pair of morally dubious Chicago street lawyers, Finley & Figg , who find themselves teamed with a young, burned-out corporate lawyer, David Zinc, in an unequal battle against big pharma. Grisham first developed the idea as a sitcom script. "The humour was there from the start. When you work at street level you never know who's going to walk through your door. Life is full of fun stuff, sad stuff and crazy stuff. I survived as a street lawyer for 10 years and bumped into guys like these. I got to know them quite well."

But a few things have changed since Grisham began to practise law 30 years ago. "Back then the term 'ambulance chaser' was very derogatory. You might sneak around trying to get cases quietly, but you didn't want people to know that. This was all before TV and billboard advertising which, in America, is now out of control. It used to be that your reputation brought you clients." He says the nature of the work he took on meant that sometimes he got paid and sometimes he didn't. "I had a lot of trouble saying no and therefore I never made that much money. But you always had that chance, as my character Oscar says, of a good car wreck. These days someone who's had a car wreck is lying in hospital watching TV, they see an ad and can call a lawyer. But that guy can't try your case. He's a lousy trial lawyer and afraid to go to court. It's just a volume thing. To make as many settlements as they can, which is not always in the interests of the person who has been injured."

Grisham has occasionally moved away from the legal world in his novels, and has also made sorties into non-fiction – in a book about a miscarriage of justice – short stories and, recently, children's fiction . But all his work has a concern for social issues and often deals directly with the legal and moral questions around such matters as the death penalty, homelessness, health insurance and prison conditions. Like the best crime fiction, his books often focus on where society is broken, and while he prefers not to call himself a liberal – "I am a moderate Democrat" – he remains politically engaged. As a strong critic of the Iraq war he was delighted to see Bush leave office, but he was, and remains, wary of Obama.

"Throughout the 2008 primary season between Hillary and Obama, which was a very bitter race, it was often pointed out that this guy did not have experience, that he had not been proven. And that has been shown over the last three years. It has been a great disappointment. His timing was impeccable, but he had not been tried and tested. I'm not saying I won't vote for him again, I probably will. If you're from a background like mine, there won't be another option." He says he was raised in a very strict and conservative manner, "but the business of Democrats being liberal and Republicans being conservative didn't quite apply back then. People had warm sentiments towards Democrats because of the social programmes they had introduced in the 1930s. The new deal had brought rural electricity and social security. The Republicans had fought these changes every step of the way. They have always been a party to protect the rich and powerful. The Democrats, put simply, helped poor people. And that was us."

Grisham was born in 1955, the second of five siblings, and was brought up on an Arkansas cotton farm. "We kids didn't really realise just how bad things were," he says, "but the first 10 years of my life were lean times for cotton farming and there was not much money around." The family then began to move round the south as his father took up various different jobs, and within a few years things had improved. "My father worked seven days a week, sometimes 12 hours a day, for a construction company. He would take all the overtime the company would give him and we started to do well as a family. That sense of hard work bringing rewards was very much instilled into all of us."

Grisham's literary hero was and still is Mark Twain . "I wanted to be Tom Sawyer. I loved that romanticised view of a kid's life. It wasn't until a lot later that I realised there was more going on with Tom and Huck than just an adventure." Steinbeck was also important to him, as was Dickens , and he has been gratified by several critics praising the "Dickensian" feel of The Litigators . "And, of course, I read Faulkner . If you grow up in Mississippi you have to. He is God and you are force-fed him at high school, but I never got on with it that well. I do appreciate his genius. No one can do the sights and sounds of that part of the world quite like him. His description of the smell of walking into a country store is perfect, but I also thought he was intentionally vague and obtuse. Maybe I just don't think reading a book should actually be hard work."

In his late teens Grisham took on a string of dead-end jobs before embarking on a series of unfinished college courses. It wasn't until 1981 that he graduated with a law degree and set up shop as a criminal and personal injury lawyer in Southaven, Mississippi. In The Litigators there is an idealistic speech about the value of working with "real people with real problems who need help. That's the beauty of street law. You meet the clients face to face, you get to know them and, if things work out, you get to help them". It comes straight from Grisham's own experience – the philosophy of his law practice mirrored his politics.

"I represented real people, poor people, who often couldn't afford to pay a lawyer, but still had problems. Directly across the street from my office were insurance companies, banks and big corporations. It was a very clear line between us, and I learned very quickly who my friends were. That's when I became a Democratic activist and eventually ran for office." He ran specifically on a platform of improving education in the state – "I found Mississippi's lack of emphasis on education embarrassing" – and was elected in 1983, aged 28. "And when I got there I just couldn't get things done. I was very naive, homesick for my young wife and baby and distracted. Ultimately my heart just wasn't in it." Grisham had married Renee Jones in 1981 and they have two children: Ty, who is a 28-year-old lawyer doing much the same type of criminal work his father did 30 years ago, and 25-year-old Shea, who is a primary school teacher.

The spark for his first book, A Time to Kill , came from a court case when Grisham observed a 12-year-old girl give evidence of her rape. Looking at the girl's father, he imagined what would happen if he took matters into his own hands and how the law and society would respond. "The story was also autobiographical in that it was about a trial in a small Mississippi town where this young lawyer gets a big verdict. That was pretty much my dream at the time. My ambitions were still legal, not literary."

He took three years to write A Time to Kill and it was two more years before it received its low-key publication. By this time he had also broken the back of The Firm , which was published in March 1991. "It became popular so fast I was in a daze. It is something you just can't prepare for. When it hit the New York Times bestseller list at number 12 I clipped the list from the paper and stuck it to my office wall. I did the same thing for the next 44 weeks."

It was while on an early book tour that Grisham received his most useful piece of career advice. "A very young executive with a big book chain just said in passing that 'the big guys come out every year'. He meant the likes of Clancy, King, Crichton, Ludlum, Follett. I heard that loud and clear. At the time I was about halfway through The Pelican Brief and had no idea when it would be finished or published. But I went home, locked myself away for 60 days and finished the book. It was published a year after The Firm . One year after that I published The Client . Those three books had an enormous impact on everything that followed. A Time to Kill was reissued and now, after all these years, is probably my bestselling book. I didn't plan any of that. But I did plan to get The Pelican Brief out a year after The Firm , and that was the best decision I ever made."

And while books came out in rapid succession so did the film versions. Throughout the 90s Grisham and Michael Crichton regularly exchanged the record for the most lucrative deals. "We had a good thing going. It was a ping-pong match. I was told that Crichton's agent started asking for the X million Grisham got plus a dollar. And these were cash deals, not options. Money on the table. And everyone involved made money. Now I can barely give film rights away. The business has completely changed and TV has become far more fun and creative."

A TV series of The Firm , taking up the story 10 years after the novel ended, airs in the US in January, and Grisham has several other TV projects. But however his work is consumed, it remains a highly lucrative operation. He says he and his wife have worked hard to keep their lives as quiet as possible. "We don't live lavishly, we don't splash money around, we don't publicise gifts. But, at least within our part of the country, I did become very well known and when something like Forbes magazine prints lists of people's incomes, then it is difficult to keep things quiet." And it's not only in his public life that the money has changed things. "You go from being just one of the family to something slightly different. And while it's easy and rewarding to take care of your children and your parents, for other people close to you it can make for a difficult relationship. There's no rule book and you are dealing with human frailties and personalities. Twenty years later we are still trying to work it out."

Grisham has used his wealth to endow scholarships at southern universities, has five little league baseball diamonds in the grounds of his Virginia estate that are used by more than 500 children each year, and has funded a literary and cultural magazine, the Oxford American. He has also given financial backing to political candidates, but says he was slow to realise the potential for incorporating political issues into his fiction.

"It wasn't until I wrote The Chamber " – his fourth novel, published in 1994 – "that I realised I could weave a novel round things such as the death penalty and some of the racial history of Mississippi." Grisham is from a strict southern Baptist household – it went without saying that he believed premeditated murder deserved the death penalty. "And that's still very much the consensus among white people in the deep South. Black people know better because they have seen so many wrongful convictions and executions." Even as a criminal defence lawyer, who had handled murder cases although not capital cases, he says he didn't really think about the issue until researching The Chamber on a Mississippi death row. "I was talking to the chaplain in the holding room, a tiny cell where the inmate has his last 30 minutes of life before they walk him next door. It is a very cramped, dark and surreal space. The chaplain said to me: 'John, you are a Christian?' I said yes. And he then said: 'Do you really think that Jesus would condone what we do here?' I said 'No, he would not'. The chaplain nodded, and in that moment I did a 180 on the death penalty. It was a remarkable feeling."

His treatment of homelessness in The Street Lawyer saw changes to the way the issue is handled in Washington DC, and his adapting of a real case in which an insurance company failed to pay out to a young leukaemia patient shone a light on American health care. He is currently engaged with cases of wrongly incarcerated prisoners.

"I have spoken to many innocent prisoners and they all have the most amazing stories to tell. But I'm also well aware that you can't preach too much while working in popular culture. You cannot assume that your politics are the same as your readers'. I have a very wide readership and I love every one of them – I don't want to force my politics on them, just as I don't want people to force their politics on me. We all have strong feelings. Every now and then my wife tells me to get off my soapbox because no one wants to hear it. And there's truth in that, so over the years I've written two types of books: those that pick up an issue, and what Graham Greene called entertainments. The Litigators is an entertainment. I take a few potshots at the plaintiff's bar for their sleazy advertising and the way pharmaceutical companies test their drugs in third world countries. But it is not centred on one thing. But if I can take the wrongful execution of a man in Texas to make people stop and think about this rush to execute people that we have in this country, I will. If I have access to a soapbox, then the least I can do is occasionally use it."

• A life in ...
• John Grisham
• Crime fiction

Comments (…)

Most viewed.

New true stories of wrongful convictions from John Grisham and Jim McCloskey.

Framed astonishing true stories of wrongful convictions.

In his first work of nonfiction since The Innocent Man , #1 bestselling author John Grisham and Centurion Ministries Founder Jim McCloskey share ten harrowing true stories of wrongful convictions. Impeccably researched and grippingly told, Framed offers an inside look at the injustice faced by the victims of the United States criminal justice system. A fundamental principle of our legal system is a presumption of innocence, but once someone has been found guilty there is very little room to prove doubt. Framed shares ten true stories of men who were innocent but found guilty and forced to sacrifice friends, families, wives, and decades of their lives to prison while the guilty parties remained free. In each of the stories, John Grisham and Jim McCloskey recount the dramatic hard-fought battles for exoneration. They take a close look at what leads to wrongful convictions in the first place, and the racism, misconduct, flawed testimony, and the corrupt court system that can make them so hard to reverse. Told with page-turning suspense as only John Grisham can deliver, Framed is the story of overcoming adversity when the battle already seems lost, and the deck is stacked against you.

Available October 8, 2024 | Preorder Now

The Latest from John Grisham

See All Books >

Connect with John Grisham

By clicking Sign Up, I acknowledge that I have read and agree to Penguin Random House's Privacy Policy and Terms of Use and understand that Penguin Random House collects certain categories of personal information for the purposes listed in that policy, discloses, sells, or shares certain personal information and retains personal information in accordance with the policy . You can opt-out of the sale or sharing of personal information anytime.

Follow on John Grisham on Social Media

The Complete John Grisham Book List

• Best Selling Authors
• Best Seller Reviews
• Book Clubs & Classes
• Classic Literature
• Plays & Drama
• Shakespeare
• Short Stories
• Children's Books
• B.A., English, Duke University

John Grisham is a master of legal thrillers. His novels have captured the attention of millions of readers, from adults to teens. Over three decades, he has written nearly one book per year, and a number of those have been adapted into popular movies.

From his debut novel " A Time to Kill " to the 2020 release of "A Time for Mercy," Grisham's books are nothing short of captivating. Over the years, he's branched out from legal stories as well. His complete list of published books includes stories about sports as well as non-fiction. It's a compelling body of literature.

Lawyer Turned Best-Selling Author

Grisham was working as a criminal defense attorney in Southaven, Mississippi when he wrote his first novel, "A Time to Kill." It is based on an actual court case that dealt with racial issues in the South. It enjoyed modest success.

He entered politics, serving in the state legislature on the Democratic ticket. Meanwhile, he began writing his second novel. It was not Grisham's intent to leave law and politics to become a published author, but the runaway success of his second endeavor, "The Firm," changed his mind.

Grisham quickly became a prolific, best-selling author. In addition to novels, he has published short stories, nonfiction, and young adult books.

Grisham Captures Mainstream Readers From 1989–2000

Few new writers have exploded onto the literary scene like John Grisham. " The Firm " became the top-selling book of 1991 and was on The New York Times Best Seller List for nearly 50 weeks. In 1993, it was made into a movie, the first of many to come based on Grisham's novels .

From "The Pelican Brief" through "The Brethren," Grisham continued to produce legal thrillers at the rate of about one per year. He tapped into his experience as a lawyer to create characters who faced moral dilemmas and dangerous situations.

During the first decade of his work, multiple novels were eventually made into major big-screen films. These include "Pelican Brief" in 1993, "The Client" in 1994, "A Time to Kill" in 1996, "The Chamber" in 1996, and "The Rainmaker" in 1997.

• 1989 - "A Time to Kill"
• 1991 - "The Firm"
• 1992 - "The Pelican Brief"
• 1993 - "The Client"
• 1994 - "The Chamber"
• 1995 - "The Rainmaker"
• 1996 - "The Runaway Jury"
• 1997 - "The Partner"
• 1998 - "The Street Lawyer"
• 1999 - "The Testament"
• 2000 - "The Brethren"

Grisham Branches Out From 2001–2010

As the best-selling author entered his second decade of writing, he stepped back from his legal thrillers to examine other genres.

"A Painted House" is a small-town mystery. "Skipping Christmas" is about a family that decides to skip Christmas. He also examined his interest in sports with "Bleachers," which tells the story of a high school football star returning to his hometown after his coach dies. The theme continued in "Playing for Pizza," a story about an American playing football in Italy.

In 2010, Grisham introduced himself to a younger audience with "Theodore Boone: Kid Lawyer," written for middle school readers.

Also in this decade, Grisham released "Ford County," his first collection of short stories, and "The Innocent Man," his first nonfiction book; the latter is about an innocent man on death row. Not to turn his back on his dedicated fans, he rounded out this period with several legal thrillers as well.

• 2001 - "A Painted House"
• 2001 - "Skipping Christmas"
• 2002 - "The Summons"
• 2003 - "The King of Torts"
• 2003 - "Bleachers"
• 2004 - "The Last Juror"
• 2005 - "The Broker"
• 2006 - "The Innocent Man"
• 2007 - " Playing for Pizza"
• 2008 - "The Appeal"
• 2009 - "The Associate"
• 2009 - "Ford County" (short stories)
• 2010 - "Theodore Boone: Kid Lawyer"
• 2010 - "The Confession"

2011 to Present: Grisham Revisits Past Successes

Following the success of the first "Theodore Boone" book, Grisham followed up with six more books, turning it into a popular series.

In "Sycamore Row," a sequel to "A Time to Kill," Grisham brought back protagonist Jake Brigance and key supporting characters Lucien Wilbanks and Harry Rex Vonner. He continued his policy of writing one legal thriller every year and threw in a couple of short stories and a baseball novel called "Calico Joe" for good measure. 

Grisham's 30th book was released in 2017, titled "Camino Island." Another intriguing crime novel, the story centers around stolen F. Scott Fitzgerald manuscripts. Between a young, enthusiastic writer; the FBI; and a secret agency, the investigation tries to track down these handwritten documents on the black market.

Following this came "The Rooster Bar," which follows three law students who suspect that their school is not what it claims to be. "The Recoking" is the story of a war hero who commits a surprising crime. Finally, "A Time for Mercy" brings readers back to Mississippi for another sequel to the well-loved "A Time to Kill."

• 2011 - "Theodore Boone: The Abduction"
• 2011 - "The Litigators"
• 2012 - "Theodore Boone: The Accused"
• 2012 - "Calico Joe"
• 2012 - "The Racketeer"
• 2013 - "Theodore Boone: The Activist"
• 2013 - " Sycamore Row"
• 2014 - "Gray Mountain"
• 2015 - "Theodore Boone: The Fugitive"
• 2015 - "Rogue Lawyer"
• 2016 - "Partners" (a "Rogue Lawyer" short story)
• 2016 - "Theodore Boone: The Scandal"
• 2016 - "Witness to a Trial" (a digital short story)
• 2016 - "The Whistler"
• 2017 - "Camino Island"
• 2017 - "The Rooster Bar"
• 2018 - "The Reckoning"
• 2019 - "The Guardians"
• 2019 - "Theodore Boone: The Accomplice"
• 2020 - "Camino Winds"
• 2020 - "A Time for Mercy"
• Complete List of Nicholas Sparks Books by Year
• Fiction and Non-Fiction Summer Law School Reading List for 1Ls
• Complete List of John Steinbeck's Books
• Complete Nora Roberts Book List
• Biography of James Patterson, Author and Producer
• Complete List of Mary Higgins Clark Books
• Biography of John Updike, Pulitzer Prize Winning American Author
• Good Airport Reads
• Biography of Louise Erdrich, Native American Author
• Reek vs Wreak vs Wreck
• Complete List of Michael Crichton Books by Year
• Biography of Agatha Christie, English Mystery Writer
• Top 10 Agatha Christie Mysteries
• Everything You Need to Know about the Stone Barrington Books
• The Complete List of Books Chosen for Oprah's Book Club

John Grisham

IMDbPro Starmeter See rank

• Contact info
• 1 win & 3 nominations

• based on the book by

• 22 episodes

• novel "Skipping Christmas"

• novel "The Runaway Jury"

• executive producer
• In Development
• Commissioner
• Narrator (voice, uncredited)
• In-development projects at IMDbPro

Personal details

• Official Site
• 6′ 1″ (1.85 m)
• February 8 , 1955
• Jonesboro, Arkansas, USA
• Renée Jones May 8, 1981 - present (2 children)
• Other works Book: "A Painted House." New York: Doubleday
• 1 Interview
• 16 Articles
• 1 Pictorial

Did you know

• Trivia His first novel 'A Time To Kill' took three years to complete and was rejected by 28 publishers.
• Quotes I grew up in a very small, close-knit, Southern Baptist family, where everything was off-limits. So I couldn't wait to get to college and have some fun. And I did for the first two years. And I regret a lot of it, because my grades were in terrible shape. I never got in serious trouble, except for my grades.
• Trademarks Writes novels about main characters that are from the Southeastern United States
• Salaries Runaway Jury ( 2003 ) $8,000,000
• How old is John Grisham?
• When was John Grisham born?
• Where was John Grisham born?

Related news

Contribute to this page.

• Learn more about contributing

More to explore

Add demo reel with IMDbPro

How much have you seen?

Recently viewed

• Even more »

Account Options

• Try the new Google Books
• Advanced Book Search
• Barnes&Noble.com
• Books-A-Million
• Find in a library
• All sellers  »

Get Textbooks on Google Play

Rent and save from the world's largest eBookstore. Read, highlight, and take notes, across web, tablet, and phone.

Go to Google Play Now »

Common terms and phrases

About the author  (2012).

James Fenimore is an experienced writer and a member of the Hyperink Team, which works hard to bring you high-quality, engaging, fun content. Happy reading!

Bibliographic information

(92) 336 3216666

[email protected]

John Grisham

The unchallenged ace of the crime and legal thrillers, John Grisham was born in Jonesboro, Arkansas in 1955. He was the second of five kin. His family, headed by his father who was a development laborer and a cotton rancher, moved much of the time until 1967. The family then settled in Southaven which is a small community in De Soto County, Mississippi.

Youthful John cherished baseball and grew up with dreams of an expert profession. Supported by his parents, he turned into an ardent reader. He was particularly impacted by John Steinbeck whose lucidity he respected. In the long run, he understood that genius ball wasn’t likely so he put forth a concentrated effort to scholastics. Toward this end, he went to Mississippi State University where he studied bookkeeping.

During his studies, Grisham started keeping a diary and hence built up the composing propensity. He continued to get a law degree in 1981 and proceeded to rehearse small community general law in Southaven for almost 10 years, with this practice he gained practical experience in criminal resistance and individual injury suits. In time, he got exhausted with criminal law and became successful at common law.

He published his first and second books and became a bestseller since then. Other than being exceptionally well known with readers, Grisham’s books have delighted in unrivaled accomplishment as films. Among those that have prevailed in the film are ‘’The Firm’’, ‘’The Pelican Brief’’, ‘’The Client’’, ‘’A Time to Kill’’, ‘’The Rainmaker’’, and ‘’the Chamber’’.

Grisham lives with his family including his wife and two kids. They split their time between their Victorian home in Mississippi and an estate close Charlottesville, VA.

A Short Biography of John Grisham

John Ray Grisham Junior was born on 8 th February 1955. His birth took place in Jonesboro, Arkansas. His father was Wanda and John Ray Grisham. He had four siblings and he was on the second number in five children of the couple. His mother was a homemaker. His father was a cotton farmer and constructor worker. His family moved to Southaven, Mississippi, and got settled there when Grisham was only four years old.

His childhood aim was to become a baseball player. He had played baseball till the age of 18. He then left playing baseball because an opponent player tried to strike him with a ball and give him a serious blow.

Grisham was converted to Christianity when he was 8 years old. He discussed this issue as the most important occasion of his life. He then pursued law education. When he left the school of law he went for some missionary work in Brazil. This was done under the First Baptist Church of Oxford.

When he was a teenager, he worked in a plant nursery where he would be paid 1 dollar per hour. He was then shifted to the crew of the fence where he would get 1.50 dollars per hour. But he was not interested in those jobs. At the age of 17, he got a job in Mississippi on a highway asphalt crew. 

One day, there arose a fight between the workers and resulted in some gunfire. The workers had to save him in different places. Grisham saved himself in a restroom. Later on, he ran home and started thinking about pursuing education in college. His parents had not acquired formal education but they encouraged Grisham for a college education.

After this job, he started working in a department store where he was a sales clerk in the men’s underwear section. He described the job as humiliating. Till this time, he had started his college and wanted to become a tax lawyer. But then he decided to become a trial lawyer and return to his hometown.

His college was Northwest Mississippi Community College in Senatobia. Later on, he joined Delta State University in Cleveland. He had a sort of drift in his nature and because of this, he had to change his college thrice before getting his degree. In 1977, he graduated from Mississippi State University. He received a B.S. degree in accounting. Afterwards, he got enrolled in the University of Mississippi School of Law. He wanted to pursue law but his mind shifted to civil litigation. He received a degree of Doctor of Jurisprudence (J.D) in 1981.

The same year, he got married to Renee Jones. They have two children Shea and Ty. Ty played baseball for the University of Virginia.

Grisham practiced law for almost ten years. He then won an election as a democrat and became a member of the Mississippi House of Representatives. He served the office from 1984 to 1990. For this service he received an annual salary of 8000 dollars. Grisham during his tenure of the House of Representative represented the seventh district that included DeSoto County.

He served as the vice-chairman of the Appointment and Elections Committee during his second term as the state legislature in Mississippi. He also remained a member of various other committees.

 When he published his second work The Firm, he got success and had to retire from his law career. But he returned to law to fight for a railroad worker who got killed during his job time.

One day, while in court, he overheard a story of a 12-year-old girl who was narrating her rape and beating story to the jury. Grisham was very much moved with the story. When the girl ended the story, the jury was crying too. He got his inspiration from the story and completed a full length in three years. The title was “A Time to Kill.” Almost 28 publishers rejected the idea of publishing a book. In 1989, Wynwood Press decided to publish the book with only 5000 copies.

After the publication of his first book, he started composing his second book, The Firm. When this book got published, it remained on The New York Times best-seller for forty-seven weeks. It also became the 7 th best-selling novel of 1991. He published his third book The Pelican Brief in 1993 and The Client in 1994. In 2001, he published The Summons and it was a best-seller too.

John Grisham has won several awards. These include

Golden Plate Award by the American Academy of Achievement in 1993

Peggy V. Helmerich Distinguished Author Award by the Tulsa Library Trust in 2005

Galaxy British Lifetime Achievement Award in 2007

Library of Congress Creative Achievement Award for Fiction in 2009

The Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction Award in 2011

Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction in 2014

John Grisham’s Writing Style

Point of view.

Most of the novels written by John Grisham are from a third-person perspective.  The tales are told from the point of view of an omniscient storyteller, in third individual utilizing past tense. This is the most agreeable perspective for the audience. This point of view is basic for two significant reasons. To start with, just an omniscient storyteller can give the audience access to all the warring components, and there are many. 

Second, none of the principle characters could give a solid, impartial report of the novel’s occasions. All things considered, it is important that a great part of the story’s activity is separated through the psyche of Jack Brigance in A Time to Kill. For instance, when Jake’s home catches fire, the peruser sees the occasion more from Jake’s vantage point than from that of the Klan or law implementation. Readers come to know Ellen Roark and Carla Brigance more from the way Jake sees them than from a real target position.

Tone of his Novels

Most of his novels are legal thrillers and they are carried out by the happening of action so the general tone of the majority of his novels is sad and tragic.

John Grisham mostly writes Legal thrillers and this is one of his most favorite genres for writing. These thrillers are marked by the suspense he creates in the pages to attract and hold the readers. The readers are then compelled to continue reading the book until the end to come to a conclusion that is always hair-raising for the readers.

For example, The Firm is a suspense thriller finishing in a hair-raising pursuit with the hero and his partners being sought after by two incredible and risky powers. As a normal case of this class, The Firm isn’t excessively troubled with subject or importance, since its basic role is clearly to hold the consideration of the audience. 

The tale is, in the well-known speech, a “page-turner,” and in this way, it isn’t important or even attractive for the writer to trouble the readers’ psyche with philosophical or moral contemplations. Surely, the activities of the hero have substantial moral ramifications; however, what a definitive moral articulation of the novel is proposed to be is hard to state. 

On the off chance that Mitchell and his partners had only crushed the Mafia and got away from their lethal plans, an unmistakable good articulation would have been clear in the novel. However, they likewise outmaneuver the FBI and get away with a lot of money, in this manner profiting in a roundabout way from the unlawful demonstrations they should uncover. As an outcome, the significance to be drawn from the novel is obfuscated.

Foreshadowing

In almost all of his novels, John Grisham has used Foreshadowing. Many of the incidents at the start of the novels foreshadow the later events and the conclusion of the novels.

For example in A Time to Kill, Tonya`s rape foreshadows her meaningless life in the future.  She cannot bear children because of the torture she has endured. This also implies that she cannot have a good sort of relationship and trust in the opposite sex because the torture has mentally captured her.

John Grisham uses imagery in most of his novels to consolidate the perspectives of the actions he is writing about. He wants the readers to be indulged in the scenes and extract the real meanings of the text because he allegorically tries to explain many things in his writings.

For example in his first novel, A Time to Kill, in which a darker looking young lady, who was assaulted, is ten years old. When Tonya is discovered, she lies on her elbows, which are stuck and bound along with yellow nylon rope. Her legs are spread with the right foot attached tight to an oak sapling and the left to a decaying, inclining post of a since a long time ago ignored fence. 

The rope has cut into her lower legs and the blood runs down her legs. Her face is swollen. The picture of the assaulted young lady gives an impression about the world, which is brimming with unfeeling and appalling individuals.

Major Themes

One of the major themes in John Grisham’s novels is racism. He deals with the subject of racism in many of his writings. He has spent a lot of time in courts and has witnessed many cases of racism. He has then drawn his inspiration from these cases of racism.

For example, in A Time to Kill, Rednecks abhorred the blacks, and the blacks had a similar inclination toward the rednecks. This made an issue in the jury and the case in general. Every attorney needed a jury of either blacks or whites (Jake needing the dark members of the jury), in spite of the fact that the jury ought to be chosen relying upon reliable individuals who are known to judge appropriately without prejudice. 

This demonstrates bigotry is all over. It causes us to notice the need to join together and care about the main problem and the individuals who were included and hurt as opposed to their shading or race. The prejudice got so awful that near the story’s end, numerous individuals were murdered in light of the fact that they upheld a specific gathering and a major battle happened between the blacks and the Ku Klux Klan.

Irony is another special device that John Grisham uses in his novels. He is talking about the legal issues in his novels. He sometimes criticizes the legal frameworks of his own country where the blacks suffer due to the issues of racism. For this very reason, he resorts to use irony. In this way, he achieves his purpose and at the same time avoids any sort of criticism as well.

For example in his first novel, he writes that Carl Lee Hailey incidentally shoots a cop, Looney, who accompanies Tonya’s attackers to the court. Hailey’s legal advisor Jake says that Carl doesn’t plan to execute a cop. Jake promptly inquires as to whether Looney is alright. Lucien sincerely answers that “Looney is fine. Simply short a leg.” It sounds amusing, in light of the fact that it is exceptionally dubious that Looney is cheerful without his leg.

Use of Symbols

John Grisham writes legal thrillers and these thrillers are filled with a number of symbols to convey the meanings of the writers. John Grisham uses a number of symbols in his novels and makes the readers understand what he wants to say in between the lines of the text.

For example, in A Time to Kill, he uses a machine gun as a symbol for revenge and retribution. Retribution is the most horrible deed. Carl chooses to submit a horrendous deed – to render retribution on two barbaric men for having beaten and assaulted his little and honest girl. Carl rapidly discovers an M-16 automatic rifle and decimates the irrelevant existence of two attackers. Carl murders them and his vengeance is to satisfy his psyche. M-16 isn’t only a weapon. It is an image of retribution and passing.

Works Of John Grisham

John Grisham Books In Order

Publication order of jake brigance books, publication order of mitch mcdeere books, publication order of theodore boone books, publication order of camino island books, publication order of rogue lawyer books, publication order of the whistler books, publication order of standalone novels, publication order of short stories/novellas, publication order of short story collections, publication order of non-fiction books, publication order of anthologies, john grisham biography:.

The American south has long been a point of interest to historians as it was the place where slavery once boomed and racisim ran rampant. Although the land has been a place of much turmoil, some positive things have arisen for it, as it was in Jonesboro, Arkansas that John Grisham was born. He arrived in the world on February 8, 1955, when cotton was still a major product of the south. His father happened to be a cotton farmer at the time.

However, the family began to move around to different areas, still south of the Mason-Dixon Line, while Grisham was in his youth. They settled down again in Southaven, Mississippi and that is where the young John Grisham became determined to be a baseball player for his profession. However, his mother had different aspirations for her son and began grooming him for college, although she herself had never received a formal education.

Her efforts did prove fruitful, as John Grisham successfully attended and graduated from Mississippi State University and later law school, graduating from Ole Miss. After having childhood desire to become a MLB player, settling on a legal career was not a simple thing for John Grisham. He had changed majors three times while in college and switched jobs several times during his teenage and young adult years.

As a lawyer, Grisham also made changes, switching from being a tax lawyer to trial lawyer, stating a dislike for the burdensome “complexity and lunacy” tax lawyers often face. His career as a trial lawyer was never fated to last long as well. Having graduated from law school in 1983, Grisham was elected to his state’s House of Representatives that same year, serving the Democratic Party until 1990. His legal practice lasted a decade.

While hanging around the courts in 1984, Grisham met a young girl with an intriguing story to tell about a case in which she was involved. The things she told him about her life touched him so much that he began to write his first novel based on her story. It was published in 1989 and is called Time to Kill. As a new author, Grisham had difficulty finding a publisher for his first book. He finally found one that was willing to let him have a printing of 5,000 copies.

The day after his first novel was released, Grisham went straight back to writing, working on his second novel, without waiting to find out if he would be a success. His confidence apparently was well-founded because his second novel, The Firm, stayed on the Best Seller List for New York Times an impressive 47 weeks after its release and was the top selling novel for 1991. It was at that time that Grisham decided to leave legal practice and become a full time writer.

Throughout his writing career, John Grisham has seen many successes, starting with his very first book and continuing through each subsequent novel. He is the author behind many well-recognized titles, including The Pelican Brief, as well as The Rainmaker, The Racketeer, A Painted House, amongst several others.

For his great writing, Grisham has been honored with several awards, including the Distinguished Author Award named after Peggy V. Helmerich, the Galaxy British Book lifetime achievement award, the legal fiction award from Harper Lee, and the USC Scripter award. Nevertheless, Grisham’s writing has not solely focused on crafting novels for adult audiences. He has also written a series of legal thrillers geared at children and pre-teens.

Inside John Grisham Novels:

Two of the books Grisham is most well-known for also happen to be the very first two novels he ever released; The Firm and Time to Kill. The Firm, released in 1991, has sold more than seven million copies. It is the second novel that he wrote and is the gripping tale about a young man named Mitchell V. McDeere who, fresh out of law school, decides to work at a Memphis law firm, appeased by their generous offer of a high salary, new BMW, and nice house with low interest mortgage.

Soon after he arrives, two of his collogues at the firm die in a mysterious accident. During their memorial service, Mitch learns that there have been others who worked at the firm and mysteriously died. The information causes him to be very suspicious. His intuition is later validated when he gets approached by the FBI who wants his help in gathering evidence against those at the law firm, revealing the fact that they are actually involved in organized crime.

Grisham’s first novel, Time to Kill was the one based off his chance meeting with a young girl as he hung around the courts one day. The story is about a ten-year-old girl in the south who happens to be African American and gets raped by two racist white men. The girl’s father finds out the story of the attack on his daughter and realizes that a similar incident happened a while back.

In an effort to protect others from the same harm, he kills the two white men and is later arrested. He then calls his friend Jake to help, but the case is made more complicated by the KKK seeking revenge for the death of the two men. They start riots outside the courtroom, kill the frail husband of Jake’s assistant, wire Jake’s car with a bomb, and eventually burn his house down.

The Transformation of John Grisham Books Into Movies:

Grisham has experienced much success with the silver screen. More than eight of the novels he has written have been adapted into films and performed well at the box office. This includes The Firm, which became a film in 1993, and was later made into a TV series.

The movie starred Tom Cruise, Gene Hackman, Holly Hunter, and Jeanne Tripplehorn. Time to Kill hit box offices in 1996 and starred Samuel L. Jackson, Sandra Bullock, Matthew McConaughey, Ashley Judd, and several other stars. Other novels written by Grisham that have become movies include, The Client in 1994, The Chamber in 1996, The Rainmaker in 1997, Mickey in 2004, and several others.

46 Responses to “John Grisham”

Love all of Grisham’s books, I’mfrom the South, LelandMs & Greenville Ms:and just moved to Cleveland Al, I love the way he talked about the South. Sports books are my favorite. The Chamber, is really close to where I did lived in Mississippi. Looking forward to reading his new book, can’t wait. i was a coach and teacher, now retired, only had time to read in the summer. Thank you for bringing back so many memories.

We absolutely love reading John Grisham’s books. We currently own 38 of them and find ourselves reading them over and over. John Grisham got us through COVID because we were unable to check out library books at that time.Reading them has also changed our opinion of the death penalty. We no longer believe in it. Thanks, John, for helping us see the light.

“The only problem with the death penalty, Ro-ark, is that we don’t use it enough” -Jake Brigance

If we used the death penalty more then the many accused, who were released after years in jail due to new DNA test proof of their innocence, would now be dead. Imagine if that was one of your family members Jake.

Read most of Mr Grisham’s books. My absolute favorite is the Painted White House. Love all of them.

The first book in John Grisham’s Theodore Boone Series appears to have at least three titles. 1. Theodore Boone, 2. Theodore Boone Kid Lawyer, 3. Theodore Boone Young Lawyer.

Thanks I’ll update it to reflect the Young Lawyer title.

Just finished The Boys from Biloxi excellent read would make a good TV series

You list Homecoming, but it is nowhere to be found. Please explain.

It’s found in the collection Sparring Partners . The Amazon link should lead to that.

Hey there. It says 2024. Be patient for it. Its coming home soon. lol

I have been reading Mr. Grisham for a long time….got us thru the COVID situation…kept my sanity. However, I have lost my list of books by ‘group’ and cannot seem to find any way to reprint it! What an amazing talent you have…don’t ever stop writing!

would be very helpful! Thank you

Have 48 hardbacks so not missing many ! Somehow have lost 2/3 dust covers and would like to buy them…plan to leave all the books to a chosen family member (children or grandchildren)!

Jeff, I have several dust covers that I can send you, mostly newer titles. Reply to my email and I will send a list of the covers I have. We can arrange transfer. No charge, just happy someone can use them.

I also need a few dust covers. Do you still have them ??

One of my favorite authors of all time. I look forward to each book that you write. I haven’t yet found one that I was disappointed in. He’s an amazing with them. Thank you, Mr.Grisham, for your books.

I have read all your books. I lived in Tupelo MS for 6 years. I’m ready to read the latest 2 books very soon. Since I lived in the South a total of 18 year’s I could see the problems that we don’t have in the area I live in OH. We are considered a small town.

I have tried to keep up with all Mr. Grisham’s books but think I may be a few behind. I’ve never read one of your books that I didn’t love. I am 78, a retired Corrections Officer and I relate to your writings so much! You are blessed with a talent that seems like it was meant for me. I have lived in MO most of my life and it thrills me to see Nixa, Springfield, Joplin, etc. mentioned in your books. You are my favorite author of all times and I hope I live to read everything you write. I love Jake Brigance. I can’t imagine A Time To Kill didn’t grab everyone’s heart. I’m so thankful you kept writing. More!! More!

I love all his books. The Jake Brigance books are my favorite. I would like to read some more Old South Crime books.

John Grisham is my favorite author. I have all his books (hardcover) with the exception of all of the Theordore Boone books (only 3). I wait every year patiently for their release. My favorite is The Partner (read it 3 times looking for a clue to its surprise ending and did not find it). Most of the time I read them twice as that is how much I enjoy your work. I was born and raised in Arkansas and now live in Florida, my sister lives in Southaven, Mississippi. I recognize a lot of the landmarks in the descriptions. All of your books are 5 star quality. Thank you Mr. Grisham for sharing your talent.

Will there be a sequel to Reckoning – what happened to the family???

Nothing appears to be planned at this time.

Will there be a sequel to Gray Mountain, so we can see what happens with Samantha??

I’m glad that I’m not the only one who felt that the ending was the perfect set up for a sequel. These characters felt so real – I want to spend more time with them, and to know what happened next. If Grisham doesn’t want to lay out those cases, what about revising Samantha 10-15 years later (ie 2018-2023), so we can see where she ended up, and get flashback summaries to what happened after Gray Mountain ended.

I don’t have a favorite book by John Grisham. All of his writings are excellent. His character development and plot lines keep the reader enticed.

I have enjoyed the movies based on the books. However, I always read the book first and often find that the movie is never as good as the book. I love to all of John Grisham books. He is my al time favorite author.

Do you need to read them in order of publication ? Are His books ,like a series that follow the characters

If they are part of a series I would read them in order. The majority are standalone and don’t follow the characters.

A Time to Kill is my favourite book and film.

The Pelican Brief is my favorite movie of all time. Excellent actors and a great story. Can’t believe this one was not mentioned in the list of books to movies.

I have all his books in my library. Each is gripping and the new books are eagerly awaited. John , in Grey Mountain, strongly opposes the destructive Mountain Top Removal coal mining practice. His philanthropy is also extensive !!

I should like to read again, John Grisham’s book about the death of a young man from lung cancer brought on by smoking and the resultant lawyer’s battle against the Tobacco firms, but annoyingly, I cannot remember the title. Please can you help. I have read so many of John Grisham’s books and am a total admirer of all his work.

The Runaway Jury.

Wasn’t the runaway jury about guns ?

The movie was. The book was about tobacco.

So far Reading any Grisham book I learn so much about the J. system. And LAWYERS. I started reading these books only a few years ago and I actually think I’m addicted! I have to have one at all times. I hope he never stops writing. So far The King of Torts, the Chamber, the Partner and the Racketeer have been very educational–JO

I have been enjoying your newest book “A Time For Mercy”. Getting closer to the end of the book there were pages missing and a chapter repeated also pages missing. I am quite disappointed. Wondering what you can do for me.

I too have pages missing, 7 in all and repeated pages and out of order pages just at the most exciting part of the Trial. I too want to know how to get a replacement without purchasing new. I bought mine at Sam’s Club in Hobart Indiana in November 2020 and just started reading it last month. Good luck getting a replacement.

Any reputable book store should offer to replace your copy so long as your copy does not appear to have pages torn out. If the binding is intact, there shouldn’t be a problem.

Dear Mr. Grishman, I watched “The Innocent Man” on Netflix, I was so involved, I love your books, I’ll never go to Ada, OK! How I hate corrupt law, thank God you chose to be a writer, no, you are more than a writer, you paint your canvas in words, He, up above, wanted your words, to pour out like sweat, you were CHOSEN! Thank You, Sal Condoluci

My all-time favorite author. Ahead of Connelly, Baldacci, and Lescroart. Recognized Amelia (Camino) Island about ten pages in….where I grew up. My son is a current resident and says Grisham has a place there. Good taste! Can’t wait for the next book.

Love this author! Am now reading “ A Time to Kill”—his first book. Can not put it down!

Love all Grisham books-Finished A Time for Mercy Is now my # 1 favorite with A Time to Kill,hope to see on the big screen someday

I love this author.He and I graduated from Mississippi State University. Also, I have written a beautiful children’s book entitled Roscoe: A Respectable Dog With Good Moral Principles. This book is on domestic violence, and it was self-published. I need Mr. Grisham’s help in getting my book published by a real publisher.The movie of A Time To Kill was filmed in my hometown of Canton,Mississippi.Also, I would love Mr. Grisham’s email address. Respectively, James Lester Thompson

I’m looking forward to future Rogue Lawyer books

Leave a Reply

The links beside each book title will take you to Amazon where you can read more about the book, check availability, or purchase it. As an Amazon Associate, I earn money from qualifying purchases. If you would like to link to us, Get the Code Here .

I often get asked by readers if they can donate to the site as a thank you for all the hard work. While I appreciate the offer – please support one of these great causes instead (list rotates monthly): Your local humane society Ronald McDonald House Camfed The Life You Can Save

Are you a fan of psychological thrillers? A big fan of authors such as Gillian Flynn? These are our most recommended authors in the thriller genre, which is my personal favourite genre:

• Freida McFadden
• Linwood Barclay
• Megan Goldin
• Peter Swanson
• Sarah Aldersom
• Shari Lapena
• Jack Reacher
• Court Gentry / Gray Man

I just want to thank everyone for visiting the site. Any issues at all don’t hesitate to use the contact form. To read more about the site or if you want a graphic to link to us, see the about page for more details.

John Grisham Biography

John Grisham, the best-selling author of today, started his career as a lawyer in Mississippi before becoming a celebrity author. His legal thrillers, such as ‘The Firm’ and ‘The Pelican Brief’, have made it to the shelves of best-sellers and have even been adapted into hit Hollywood films. With over 250 million copies sold worldwide, Grisham is considered the chief of legal thrillers. He outlines his novels extensively, sometimes taking longer to write the outline than the manuscript itself. Influenced by renowned authors like Mark Twain and John Steinbeck, Grisham is largely self-taught and relies on his instinct and critical reading habit. In addition to his writing, he is an active member of ‘The Innocence Project’. To learn more about this fascinating personality, continue reading.

Quick Facts

• Also Known As: John Ray Grisham Jr.
• Age: 68 Years, 68 Year Old Males
• Spouse/Ex-: Renee Jones
• Father: John Grisham
• Mother: Wanda Skidmore Grisham
• Children: Shea Grisham, Ty Grisham
• Quotes By John Grisham
• Height: 6’1″ (185 cm), 6’1″ Males
• Political ideology: Democratic
• U.S. State: Arkansas
• Education: Northwest Mississippi Community College, Mississippi State University, Southaven High School, Delta State University, University of Mississippi
• Awards: 2005 – Helmerich Award

Childhood & Early Life

John Ray Grisham, Jr. was the second of the five children born to John Grisham and Wanda Grisham, in Jonesboro, Arkansas. The family settled in DeSoto County, Mississippi, when he was just four years old.

He initially wanted to become a baseball player but his dreams soon changed when he began focusing on his education, while attending Northwest Mississippi Community college.

As a teenager, he worked a number of odd jobs including watering bushes, working with the asphalt crew and working as a salesclerk in a departmental store. All these jobs drove him to a point of ‘lunacy’, which is when he decided that he would pursue his college education seriously.

He then shifted to Delta State University but finally graduated from Mississippi State University, with a BS in Accounting, in 1977.

After his graduation, he studied civil litigation at the University Of Mississippi School Of Law and graduated with a JD degree, in 1983.

He practiced law for a decade and was also elected to the Mississippi House of Representatives as a Democrat, in 1983. He was a member of the Mississippi state legislature from 1983 to 1990. He served as the vice-chairman of the Apportionment and Elections Committeee, and was a member of several other committees.

In 1984, an incident involving the rape of a 12-year-old girl inspired him to write his first novel, ‘Time to Kill’, which took three years to complete.

Once the novel was complete, Grisham had a difficult time to find publishers. ‘Wynwood Press’ finally published his work in June, 1989. Right after his novel was published, he began working on his second novel, ‘The Firm’, which was published two years later.

From 1992 to 1998, he published a series of best-selling novels such as ‘The Pelican Brief’, ‘The Client’, ‘The Chamber’, ‘The Rainmaker’, ‘The Runaway Jury’, ‘The Partner’ and ‘The Street Lawyer’ in the order.

Starting with the new millennium, in 2001, he diverged from the legal genre and authored ‘A Painted House’ and ‘Skipping Christmas’ the same year. In the next two years, he authored, ‘The Summons’, ‘The King of Torts’ and ‘Bleachers’.

The period from 2004 to 2008 was an extremely fruitful one, when he published a number of best-sellers including, ‘The Last Juror’, ‘The Broker’, ‘Playing for Pizza’ and ‘The Appeal’. He experimented with a new genre for ‘Playing for Pizza’, as it was based on American football.

In 2010, he deviated from writing legal thrillers yet again, but this time, his books targeted a whole new segment; children. The ‘Theodore Boone’ series, which is a four-part series, is about a 13-year-old boy who gives legal advice to his peers.

From 2011 to 2013, along with the ‘Theodore Boone’ series, he has also authored, ‘The Litigators’, ‘Calico Joe’, ‘The Racketeer’ and the most recent, ‘Sycamore Row’, which is yet to be released.

Major Works

His first best-seller, ‘The Firm’, released in 1991 and sold over than seven million copies worldwide. It became the first best-seller of the year 1991 and is known as his most widely-recognized novel. The book was adapted for a feature film of the same title, starring Tom Cruise and Gene Hackman. It was also adapted for television in 2011. Many of his novels have been translated in 29 languages.

In 1993, his third novel, ‘The Pelican Brief’ became an international best-seller. A film adaptation of the same was released the same year starring Denzel Washington and Julia Roberts.

His fourth novel, ‘The Client’, which was published in 1993, earned him widespread acclaim. The novel became so successful that it was adapted for film the very next year, starring Susan Sarandon. The film also became a huge hit, which went on to spawn a television series that ran from 1995 to 1995.

Personal Life & Legacy

He wed Renee Jones on May 8, 1981 and they have two children. In their spare time, the family moves between their homes in Oxford, Mississippi and their other home in Charlottesville, Virgina.

He is one of the Board of Directors of the ‘The Innocence Project’, which is a project involved in acquitting convicts who were unfairly sentenced on the basis of DNA tests.

There is a ‘John Grisham Room’ in the Mississippi State University, which houses all the materials written by Grisham. Since he is an avid baseball fan, he supports the Mississippi State University’s baseball team and also produced the 2004 baseball movie, ‘Mickey’.

Apart from J.K. Rowling and Tom Clancy, this famous author is the only other author to sell 2 million copies on a first printing.

Leave a Comment Cancel reply

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.