Fiction's Bestseller
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| by Mary Reedy | 02/06/00 |
This author sold more books than anyone in the 1990's. No one else even comes close. Not King or Clancy. Not Mary Higgins Clark or Barbara Taylor Bradford.
The closest contender was the perennial and multi-media Michael Crichton with two books. His "Jurassic Park" sold 6.4 million copies, and "Rising Sun" sold 5.6 million.
And it wasn't just one blockbuster or even two or three. This author has five books in the top 10 bestseller list of the 1990's.
(And if you want to stretch things just a little bit, this author has six titles in the Top 11 bestseller list of the entire 1990's.)
This author is, of course, John Grisham. According to "Publishers Weekly" stats (as of March '98), he has sold the following:
That's 40.1 million hardcover books up through 1998 with six of his novels turning up on the big screen with big name stars like Tom Cruise, Julia Roberts and Gene Hackman. His paperback sales put the total close to 90 million books sold.
The films "The Firm, The Pelican Brief, The Client, A Time to Kill, The Rainmaker, and The Chamber" were all successes that helped spread the word that John Grisham was the master of American legal thrillers. His books "sold" his films, and his films "sold" his books.
Born in Arkansas in 1955, John Grisham attended Mississippi State University and graduated from the law school at Ole Miss in 1981. He practiced law in Mississippi for ten years, specializing in criminal defense and personal injury litigation and in 1983 was elected to the state House of Representatives, where he served until 1990.
He spent three years working on "A Time To Kill," his first book, in between courtroom litigation, and it was rejected by several publishers before the Wynwood Press released it in June of '88.
Immediately after that Grisham wrote "The Firm," and the rest is, as they say, "history." He wrote one bestseller after another, year in and year out throughout the '90's.
His protagonists are lawyers, each with their own particular skills and each with their own personal troubles, who are finally launched into personal and legal combat when the full scope of the evil around them is finally revealed.
They do the right thing, as readers cheer them on, but more importantly, and unlike many of us, Grisham's partners prevail. They struggle unselfishly for good against detestable evil and win, inspiring us by example not to walk away.
Grisham is a writer for his time, and no one tells the story better than he does. His characters are vigorous and talented masters of their craft, and his taut style is perfectly in sync with our cyber-paced instantaneous world.
Today John Grisham lives with his wife of 16 years, Renee, and their two children dividing time between their home in Mississippi and another in Charlottesville, Virginia.
A passionate baseball fan who dreamed of playing in the Big Leagues, Grisham built six baseball diamonds on his Virginia property which are now home to 26 teams and 350 Little Leaguers. Now when he's not writing and editing, he's in the dugout coaching.
Now John Grisham has just released his first book of the '00's (shall we call them "the oughts?"), another legal thriller entitled "The Brethren."
As always, expect the pin point plot control that marks all Grisham's thrillers, but you're also going to find a narrative that isn't running to the big finale. There's time for the story's good and the bad players to look in the mirror and reveal a bit more about themselves than in previous stories.
"The Brethren" is the work of a master flexing his muscles, and the only question now is, not if it'll be a home run, but how far he'll hit it out of the ballpark.
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Author's site at his publisher's with news, a bio, a quiz and information about his books. Read more about the book. An excerpt Amusing article about Grisham's lawyers forming a law firm. |