Even if you haven’t read him, you have probably watched or heard about the movie adaptations. The Firm, The Pelican Brief, A Time to Kill, Runaway Jury, The Client… to name a few. The movies always had major stars in them such as Julia Roberts and Denzel Washington (The Pelican Brief), Dustin Hoffman and John Cusack in The Runaway Jury and Chris O’ Donnel and Gene Hackman in The Rainmaker. The list goes on.
His paycheck for his second novel’ s (The Firm) was $6 million. The movie starred Tom Cruise.
So how did it happen? How did he become such a consecutive best-seller? How does he find so much material for so many books that are about lawyers and the law? Well, here it goes:
John Grisham is from Missisipi and is a lawyer. His first novel is A Time to Kill, though it was published after the success of The Firm. He worked the long hours at a law office. One day he witnessed a trial that practically changed his life.
A father’s young daughter had been raped and there was a chance the guilty party could walk away. John was a father too and he thought to himself that he would want to shoot the bastards dead. Hell, maybe he really would. So he imagined a story where the father was black, the girl was 10 and the rapists were white. He also imagined the father would shoot the guys- right at the trial. He also imagined a young white lawyer who took up the case and racist groups that made life difficult for everyone. And he wrote A Time to Kill. The movie features Matthew McConaughey, Sandra Bullock, Samuel L. Jackson, Ashley Judd and Kiefer Sutherland. It is a good book and a good movie that pays its respect. But funnily enough the books were rejected when John first sent it to publishers. He gave up after a while and wrote The Firm. This book went to print, and became a smash hit. After that, he didn’t have a hard time finding a publisher.
The path to building your career-no matter what the sector-involves a lot of failed expectations, unreturned calls and emails to job applications, bad intervies and well, hopeless moments. I believe trying to make it as a writer is even more difficult because rejection gets to be a part of your everyday life. Sometimes a project you are so fond of are going to be turned down. But just like you do not hit rock buttom and enter into the depression zone after a bad interview, you have to take it in and start working on something else. Grisham is one of the richest and most successful writers. I loved his books so much my dad seriously thought I should become a lawyer. My addiction to courtroom suspense started with him. I only dream about improving my penship so that I can become half the writer he is.
But there. You have a guy who managed to look after his family, produce a book in between 70 hour work weeks, handle rejection and write another book among that hectic work schedule. Wow!!!!
Now you have a guy, who takes cases when he wants, writes full time, who can afford anything he wants, and coaches baseball at his kid’s team. (Did I mention he wanted to be a baseball player when he was a kid himself ?)
So as far as idols go, Grisham is one of my heroes. Who are yours?