The Appeal
THE ENTERTAINMENT CRITIC BOOK REVIEW, BY JAMES MYERS
www.theentertainmentcritic.comwww.theentertainmentcritic.netwww.theentertainmentcriticmagazine.comTHE APPEAL
By John Grisham
Published by Doubleday, an Imprint of the Doubleday Broadway Publishing Group, A Division of Random House, Inc
Publication Date: January, 2008
Price: $27.95
358 Pages
ISBN-13: 9780385515047
Five Star Rating *****
BEST KNOWN FOR HIS WORKS OF MODERN LEGAL DRAMA
AS OF 2008, HIS BOOKS HAVE SOLD OVER 235 MILLION COPIES WORLDWIDE
1983 HE WAS ELECTED AS A DEMOCRAT TO THE MISSISSIPPI HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, WHERE HE SERVED UNTIL 1990
DONATED OVER $100,000 TO DEMOCRATIC PARTY CANDIDATES
SEPTEMBER 2007 GRISHAM APPEARED WITH HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON, HIS CHOICE FOR U.S. PRESIDENT IN 2008, AND FORMER VIRGINIA GOVERNOR MARK WARNER, WHOM GRISHAM SUPPORTS FOR THE U.S. SENATE SEAT BEING VACATED BY REPUBLICAN JOHN WARNER
HIS SECOND BOOK, THE FIRM, BECAME THE 7TH BESTSELLING NOVEL OF 1991.
WHEN HE SOLD THE FILM RIGHTS TO THE FIRM TO PARAMOUNT PICTURES FOR $600,000, GRISHAM SUDDENLY BECAME A HOT PROPERTY AMONG PUBLISHERS, AND BOOK RIGHTS WERE BOUGHT BY DOUBLEDAY. SPENDING 47 WEEKS ON THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER LIST, THE FIRM BECAME THE BESTSELLING NOVEL OF 1991.
THE SUCCESSES OF THE PELICAN BRIEF, WHICH HIT NUMBER ONE ON THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER LIST, AND THE CLIENT, WHICH DEBUTED AT NUMBER ONE, CONFIRMED GRISHAM'S REPUTATION AS THE MASTER OF THE LEGAL THRILLER.
GRISHAM'S 1992 NOVEL THE PELICAN BRIEF SOLD 11,232,480 COPIES IN THE UNITED STATES ALONE.
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)
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.
SINCE FIRST PUBLISHING A TIME TO KILL IN 1988, GRISHAM HAS WRITTEN ONE NOVEL A YEAR (HIS OTHER BOOKS ARE THE FIRM, THE PELICAN BRIEF, THE CLIENT, THE CHAMBER, THE RAINMAKER, THE RUNAWAY JURY, THE PARTNER, THE STREET LAWYER, THE TESTAMENT, THE BRETHREN, A PAINTED HOUSE, SKIPPING CHRISTMAS, THE SUMMONS, THE KING OF TORTS, BLEACHERS, THE LAST JUROR, AND THE BROKER) AND ALL OF THEM HAVE BECOME INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLERS. THERE ARE CURRENTLY OVER 225 MILLION JOHN GRISHAM BOOKS IN PRINT WORLDWIDE, WHICH HAVE BEEN TRANSLATED INTO 29 LANGUAGES.
NINE OF HIS NOVELS HAVE BEEN TURNED INTO FILMS (THE FIRM, THE PELICAN BRIEF, THE CLIENT, A TIME TO KILL, THE RAINMAKER, THE CHAMBER, A PAINTED HOUSE, THE RUNAWAY JURY, AND SKIPPING CHRISTMAS), AS WAS AN ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY,
THE INNOCENT MAN (OCTOBER 2006) MARKS HIS FIRST FORAY INTO NON-FICTION
THE MISSISSIPPI STATE UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES, MANUSCRIPT DIVISION, MAINTAINS THE JOHN GRISHAM ROOM, AN ARCHIVE CONTAINING MATERIALS GENERATED DURING THE AUTHOR'S TENURE AS MISSISSIPPI STATE REPRESENTATIVE AND RELATING TO HIS WRITINGS.
GRISHAM'S LIFELONG PASSION FOR BASEBALL IS EVIDENT IN HIS NOVEL A PAINTED HOUSE AND IN HIS SUPPORT OF LITTLE LEAGUE ACTIVITIES IN BOTH OXFORD, MISSISSIPPI AND CHARLOTTESVILLE, VIRGINIA. HE WROTE THE ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY FOR AND PRODUCED THE BASEBALL MOVIE MICKEY, STARRING HARRY CONNICK, JR.. THE MOVIE WAS RELEASED ON DVD IN APRIL 2004.[9] HE REMAINS A FAN OF MISSISSIPPI STATE UNIVERSITY'S BASEBALL TEAM AND WROTE ABOUT HIS TIES TO THE UNIVERSITY AND THE LEFT FIELD LOUNGE IN THE INTRODUCTION FOR THE BOOK DUDY NOBLE FIELD: A CELEBRATION OF MSU BASEBALL.
HIS MOST RECENT BOOK, PLAYING FOR PIZZA, IS A BOOK ABOUT AN ITALIAN PROFESSIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE
GRISHAM IS ALSO WELL KNOWN WITHIN THE LITERARY COMMUNITY FOR HIS EFFORTS TO SUPPORT THE CONTINUING LITERARY TRADITION OF HIS NATIVE SOUTH. GRISHAM HAS ENDOWED SCHOLARSHIPS AND WRITER'S RESIDENCIES IN THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSISSIPPI'S ENGLISH DEPARTMENT AND GRADUATE CREATIVE WRITING PROGRAM, AND WAS THE FOUNDING PUBLISHER OF THE OXFORD AMERICAN, A MAGAZINE DEVOTED TO LITERARY WRITING AND FAMOUS FOR ITS ANNUAL MUSIC ISSUE, COPIES OF WHICH INCLUDE A COMPILATION CD FEATURING CONTEMPORARY AND CLASSIC SOUTHERN MUSICIANS IN GENRES RANGING FROM BLUES AND GOSPEL TO COUNTRY-WESTERN AND ALTERNATIVE ROCK
THE APPEAL IS GRISHAM'S 21ST NOVEL.
“According to Carl’s hasty research, the firm of Troy-Hogan worked very hard at not being seen. It had no website, brochure, advertisements, listed phone number or anything else that might attract clients. It was not a law firm...It had no registered lobbyists. It was a corporation…The firm was known to provide marketing and consulting services… No one knew who owned it….The principal was one Barry Rinehart….Barry laughed and crossed his legs. ‘We do campaigns. Have a look…Thirty-one states elect their appellate and supreme court judges. They are in green. The yellow ones have the good sense to appoint their courts. We make our living in the green ones.
“Judicial elections”
“Yes. That’s all we do, and we do it very quietly. When our clients need help, we target a supreme court justice who is not particularly friendly, and we take him or her, out of the picture.
“Just like that?”
“Just like that.”
“Who are your clients?”
…”they’re all on your side of the street. Big companies in energy, insurance, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, timber, all types of manufacturers, plus doctors, hospitals, nursing homes, banks….
“We review every appellate decision in the green states. We know every appellate judge, their backgrounds, families, prior careers, divorces, bankruptcies, all of the dirt. We review every decision and can predict the outcome of almost every case on appeal. We track every legislature and keep up with bills that might affect civil justice. We also monitor important civil trials.”
“How about the one in Hattiesburg?”
“Oh, yes. We were not at all surprised at the verdict.”
“Then why were my lawyers surprised?”
“Your lawyers were good but not great. Plus the plaintiff has a better case. I’ve studied a lot of toxic dumps, and Bowmore is one of the worst.”
“That’s my prediction. The flood is coming.”
Carl glanced at the ocean and drank some more coffee. “What happens on appeal?”
“Depends on who is on the Mississippi Supreme Court. Right now there is a very good chance the verdict will be affirmed in a 5-to-4 decision. The state has been notoriously sympathetic to the plaintiffs for the past two decades and, as you probably know, has a well-earned reputation as a hotbed of litigation. Asbestos, tobacco, fen-phen, all sorts of crazy class actions. Tort lawyers love the place.”
“So, I’ll loose by one vote?”
“More or less. The court is not entirely predictable, but, yes, it is usually a 5-to-4 split.”
“So all we need is a friendly judge.”
“Yes.” (Pp 82-84).
John Grisham is known for writing compelling Legal dramas. Intricate and thought-provoking, he has mastered this genre and made it his own. In The Appeal, he introduces us to something other than just the poor, beleaguered plaintiff and his junk yard dog attorney fighting against the monolithic insurance company and their sophisticated defense lawyers. The verdict in this book is just where the tale starts, not where it ends. This book gives an explosive and gut wrenching look into the appellate system, and why its importance cannot be overlooked in the civil justice system.
In this instance, a chemical company, Krane Chemical, from New York City, has built a pesticide plant in Bowmore, Mississippi, “because the land and labor were dirt cheap.” Krane Chemical then spent the next 30 years illegally dumping chemical and waste into the ground and rivers, contaminating the drinking water, causing the nearby citizens to die of cancer and leukemia. A Plaintiff, 34 year old Janette Baker, lost a son and a husband to cancer, and through her lawyers, filed a civil action for damages in the Hattiesburg trail court. After forty-two hours of deliberations, seventy-one days of trial, 530 hours of testimony from four dozen witnesses, the jury had reached a 10-2 verdict. The award was $41 million dollars, 3 million dollars in compensatory damages for the loss of her son and husband, and 38 million dollars in punitive damages (the amount of money that the corporation makes in one month), to punish the corporation for their intentional and grossly negligent actions.
Carl Trudeau, the owner of the Krane Chemical has a few problems. First, there is the paying for the one verdict itself. Secondly, there are 200-300 other claims, just like the Baker case that have been filed, and perhaps another 3000 cases would be spawned from this result, or perhaps an expensive class action that may well be filed in the near future. To add insult to injury, Krane has an 8 yr old memo in its possession that both the in-house lawyer and the owner had seen that in its one hundred pages details the companies dumping of toxic waste at the Bowmore plant, summarized the company’s elaborate efforts to hide the dumping from the Environmental Protection Agency, and the bribing of public officials at the local, state and federal levels. The memo recommends a secret but complete cleanup at a cost of $50 million or pay the consequences later in a landslide, runaway verdict in court. The stock begins to drop like a stone. He has no choice but to buy time with an appeal. He hires a clandestine consulting firm, who tells him that if things stand as they are, he’ll loose the appeal 5-4. However, the consultant tells him that judges can be changed and for $8 million, they can place a judge in that position, so 18 months from now, a friendly judge caused a 5-4 victory overturning the case.
This is just where Grisham’s tale begins. With judicial elections coming up, the consultants recruit a young, unsuspecting prospect with the right background. They educate, finance, manipulate, market and mold him into a supreme court justice. He becomes a hand-picked judge to derail the Baker case. Grisham takes us through the looking glass, in a detailed, real life sounding story, with the background and detail that mark all of his legal intrigues. Will the mom and pop plaintiff’s firm be pushed into Bankruptcy? Can the survivors wait out the appeal? Will the liberal female justice be taken “out of the picture”? Who is this new upstart candidate that suddenly appears so unstoppable? Grisham pays great attention to detail. All of the characters have their own unique concerns and angles, and they are weaved in to this tale in a disturbingly familiar, realistic and knowledgeable way. This is a deeply disturbing, eye-opening book. The book has an eerie, creepy truth to it, as if Grisham is relating a piece of non-fiction to us. It has a newspaper/investigative feel to it. The words come to us as if it were a cross between today’s headlines and a ghost story. In an election, this is a perverted reminder of elections that have been rumored to be bought and sold, of voting machines in Lake Michigan or hanging chads in Miami. It is this stirring attention to details and the smoky revelation of “fact” that will keep you turning page after page after page.
This legal thriller opens the door of your mind to the possibility that millions of dollars can buy anything in our justice system, including a friendly, “awards are too large anyways” type of judge. Money that manipulates the legal and political system is a common theme in all of Grisham’s legal thumpers, but never has he possessed the power to make the tale seem so real. “Grisham is clearly fed up with how big money tends to control political races. The long campaign he so engagingly describes is a mixture of character assassination, breathtaking hypocrisy, mudslinging ads, and backroom fraudulence. In other words, Grisham offers a sadly familiar picture of today's political scene.” The stark realization that judicial seats can be purchased, and that in the 31 states that elect their appellate and supreme court judges, the nature of a competitive political process leads to innate corruption, manipulation and ultimately injustice. The bag of dirty tricks and smear tactics of the right are examined in some detail. In this presidential election year, this is a far more blunt, accurate and plain-spoken indictments of our contemporary political system’s real failings; so real you think you are reading non-fiction. This book reads like America’s headlines, and is a page-turning tour de force. One of 2008’s very best pieces of fiction, it is a must read of the very first order.
Posts
