Authors: John Grisham
Biography and career
John Grisham, the second oldest of five siblings, was born in Jonesboro, Arkansas, to Southern Baptist parents of modest means. His father worked as a construction worker and a cotton farmer; his mother was a homemaker. After moving frequently, the family settled in 1967 in the town of Southaven in DeSoto County, Mississippi, where Grisham graduated from Southaven High School. He played as a quarterback for the school football team. Unlike the main character in his 2003 novel, Bleachers, he wasn't an All-American football player. Encouraged by his mother, the young Grisham was an avid reader, and was especially influenced by the work of John Steinbeck whose clarity he admired.
Education
In 1977 Grisham received a Bachelor of Science degree in accounting from Mississippi State University. While studying at MSU, the author began to keep a journal, a practice that would later assist in his creative endeavors. Grisham tried out for the baseball team at Delta State University, but was cut by the coach, who was the former Boston Red Sox pitcher Dave Ferriss. He earned his J.D. degree from the University of Mississippi School of Law in 1981. During law school Grisham switched interests from tax law to criminal and general civil litigation. Upon graduation he entered a small-town general law practice for nearly a decade in Southaven, where he focused on criminal law and civil law representing a broad spectrum of clients. As a young attorney he spent much of his time in court proceedings.
Inspiration for first novel.
In 1984 at the De Soto County courthouse in Hernando, Grisham witnessed the harrowing testimony of a 12-year-old rape victim. According to Grisham's official website, Grisham used his spare time to began work on his first novel, which "explored what would have happened if the girl's father had murdered her assailants." He "spent three years on A Time to Kill and finished it in 1987. Initially rejected by many publishers, it [the manuscript] was eventually bought by Wynwood Press, who gave it a modest 5,000-copy printing and published it in June 1988."
The day after Grisham completed A Time to Kill, he began work on another novel, the story of a young attorney "lured to an apparently perfect law firm that was not what it appeared." That second book, The Firm, became the 7th bestselling novel of 1991. Grisham then went on to produce at least one work a year, most of them widely popular bestsellers. He is the only person to author a number-one bestselling novel of the year for seven consecutive years (1994–2000).
Beginning with A Painted House in 2001, the author broadened his focus from law to the more general rural south, while continuing to pen his legal thrillers.
Publishers Weekly declared Grisham "the bestselling novelist of the 90s", selling a total of 60,742,289 copies. He is also one of only a few authors to sell two million copies on a first printing; others include Tom Clancy and J.K. Rowling. Grisham's 1992 novel The Pelican Brief sold 11,232,480 copies in the United States alone.
Refer: John Grisham - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Rainmaker Hot Books By John Grisham
It's summer in Memphis. The sweat is sticking to Rudy Baylor's shirt and creditors are nipping at his heels. Once he had aspirations of breezing through law school and punching his ticket to the good life. Now he doesn't have a job or a prayer...except for one: an insurance dispute that leaves a family devastated and opens the door for a lawsuit, if Rudy can find a way to file it.By the time Rudy gets to court, a heavyweight corporate defense team is there to meet him. And suddenly he's in over his head, plunged into a nightmare of lies and legal maneuverings. A case that started small is exploding into a thunderous million-dollar war of nerves, skill and outright violence--a fight that could cost one young lawyer his life, or turn him into the biggest rainmaker in the land...
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