The Enduring Charm of John Grisham
My last story for TIME
My last piece for TIME is out today, and it’s a fun one: I went to Memphis and hung out with author John Grisham as he prepares to release his latest book, the first-ever sequel to The Firm.
Since breaking out with The Firm in 1991, Grisham has released 48 consecutive New York Times No. 1 bestsellers, a feat no other writer has matched. On Facebook, where he has more than a million followers, fans gush with anticipation. (“Can’t wait!” “I always get excited when October comes around so I can get the new one!” “I’m so ready!”) “He doesn’t get enough attention, he’s taken for granted by practically everybody, but he’s had a steady output of books that people always read,” says the longtime film and literary critic Janet Maslin. “He’s very disciplined, very serious, and really careful to be able to reach everybody. He never shows off. His books aren’t polarizing. They’re just dependably good.”
This month, Grisham looks to extend his winning streak by going back to the beginning. His new thriller, The Exchange, is a sequel to The Firm, the legal thriller set in Memphis that established him as a force in publishing and Hollywood alike. The movie version released 30 years ago, starring Tom Cruise as lawyer Mitch McDeere, remains his highest-grossing adaptation. His publisher says the new book was inspired in part by Cruise’s comeback turn in Top Gun: Maverick last year. Its release is a milestone that has Grisham feeling reflective. “When I started writing the book in January of this year, I really got nostalgic,” he tells me.
He’s not the only one. For a mix of commercial and cultural reasons, a late-career Grisham renaissance may be in the offing. A wave of movie-critic thinkpieces have heralded a turn back to the type of adult dramas that made him one of his era’s defining genre writers. “It’s Time to Bring Back the ‘90s Legal Thriller,” a writer for GQ recently argued, while the New York Times ran a nostalgic reflection on the era “When John Grisham Movies Were King.” The youngest Gen Xers are reaching the peak of their consumer power, sparking a wave of 90s nostalgia. And after decades where Hollywood turned away from adult dramatic fare, the studios are turning back. Feature films of Grisham’s novels Calico Joe, The Confession, The Partner and The Racketeer are all in development, while several others are being turned into TV series, according to his agent, David Gernert, who says there’s more studio interest in Grisham's work than ever before. “The business changed and the studios were not making ‘John Grisham movies’ for a while,” Gernert says. “Now everything’s come full circle.”
Keep reading for Grisham’s thoughts on race and politics; a priceless quote from his buddy Stephen King; and a little local color:
Many scenes in The Firm are set at the Peabody hotel, a Memphis landmark that pops up in other Grisham novels as well. Grisham had his senior prom here, in 1973, and his sister-in-law was married here. The hotel is known for the ducks that spend the day swimming in its lobby fountain, a tradition that stems from a manager’s drunken stashing of his live decoys in the 1930s. Today the ducks are trained to walk a red carpet to the fountain from the elevator in an elaborate, twice-daily “ceremony,” attended by a full time “duckmaster” and a large crowd of tourists. The whole hotel is duck-themed, from the logo to the duck-shaped soaps in the guest rooms. Nothing could be more Southern, it seems to me, than to take a drunken prank and sacralize it into a hallowed tradition.
Like any good thriller, the piece ends with a little bit of a twist! Read it here, with a very Peabody portrait by Whitten Sabbatini. (And if you missed my job news, you can find it here.)