Saturday, February 09, 2008 8:03 AM
Blawg Book Highlighter #22: The Appeal
On the Amazon.com sales page for John Grisham’s foray back into the
legal thriller, The Appeal, there’s an open letter from the author
addressed to Amazon Customers. He writes:
“After a short hiatus, I am delighted to be back on familiar turf. THE
APPEAL is my first real legal thriller in several years, and as I wrote
it I felt very much at home. All of my books are based in some measure
on real life, and THE APPEAL is no different.”
“Set in Mississippi, it is the story of a campaign for a seat on the
state’s Supreme Court, and it explores the real-life efforts by big
business to eliminate unfriendly justices and replace them with more
‘sympathetic’ ones. It is a rapidly paced mix of political and legal
intrigue.”
So now we know what Grisham, the bestselling author of the 1990s,
thinks of his latest.
Amazon’s customers have already begun to weigh in on the book. Although
the book just hit the bookstores last week, it has managed to garner 36
customer reviews on Amazon. Their take: 3 ½ stars out of 5 (11 - 5
star; 8 - 4 star; 6 – 3 star; 9 – 2 star; 2 – 1 star).
The professional critics are likewise generally positive.
Janet Maslin of the New York Times declares that it is Grisham’s
“savviest book in years” and that his “extended vacation from
hard-hitting fiction is over.” To Maslin, “It barely matters that the
characters in ‘The Appeal’ are essentially stick figures. What works
for Mr. Grisham is his patient, lawyerly, inexorable way of dramatizing
urgent moral issues.”
Tim Rutten of the Los Angeles Times finds Grisham’s 20th novel to be
“an angry, dark and urgent a piece of social realism as you’re likely
to find on the bestseller list any time soon.” To Rutten, “it’s a far
more blunt, accurate and plain-spoken indictment of our contemporary
political system’s real failings than you’re likely to find anywhere on
the nonfiction lists.”
Jennifer Reese of Entertainment Weekly admits that Grisham’s “not a
stylist. His characters are flatter than hoecakes, and he leans too
heavily on cornpone court action.” But she’s willing to overlook all
that because the book is still “stirring popular fiction that doubles
as an important public-service announcement.”
Publishers Weekly, however, finds that “The Appeal” falls short and
will leave devote Grisham fans wondering if the author has “run out of
gas.” It says Grisham “gives the relevant issues of tort reform and
plaintiff’s rights short shrift” and is critical of the book’s
“undeveloped characters and a last-minute plot contrivance.”
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Randy Richardson is an author, humorist, former journalist, and a lawyer. His fiction debut, Lost in the Ivy, a murder mystery set against the backdrop of Chicago's storied Wrigley Field, won the Writers Marketing Association's “Fresh Voices” Book Award and the Illinois Woman's Press Association's Mate E. Palmer Communications Contest. He writes the Dad Libs column for SanityCentral.com and is a frequent contributor to Chicago Parent magazine. In his day job, he is an attorney for the Social Security Administration’s disability appeals branch. At night and during lunch breaks, he serves as president of the Chicago Writers Association (chicagowrites.org) and works on his second novel while a 4-year-old tugs on his legs. Visit his website at www.lostintheivy.com.
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