Interview with John Grisham
Posted by Goodreads on October 8, 2014
No one does legal thrillers with an eye for detail and a finger on society's pulse quite like John Grisham. While you may have read some of his more than 30 internationally known books, you are just as likely to be familiar with this former attorney's stories via the big screen, thanks to Hollywood's hunger for film adaptations of such page-turners as The Firm, The Pelican Brief, and The Client.
In his latest novel, Gray Mountain, New York lawyer Samantha Kofer takes an unpaid internship in Appalachia after getting downsized from her Wall Street firm. She stumbles on a high-stakes secret in tiny Brady, Virginia, population 2,200, where insular small-town politics mix with Big Coal interests. In this Goodreads exclusive, Grisham offers up a sampling of his reading habits and speaks passionately about the subject matter of his next novel: America's prison system and whom it affects most. We are also rewarded with his advice to a young Matt Damon on the set of The Rainmaker, a glimpse of how Grisham feels when entering courtrooms these days, and his thoughts on idealism and entertainment as they influence his writing.
Goodreads: You've created some iconic heroes—Jake Brigance, Mitchell McDeere, Darby Shaw. Tell us about Samantha Kofer, the young legal star at the center of Gray Mountain.
John Grisham: The protagonist is a 29-year-old female lawyer from a big firm in New York who suddenly loses her job due to the Lehman Brothers collapse in 2008. She lost her job with a huge firm in Manhattan, she's suddenly out of work, and she's the heroine of the story.
GR: Big Coal plays a role in this book, as coal mining has always been a ubiquitous, but controversial presence in Appalachia. Since you've researched and queried power struggles in a variety of settings for decades now, have your perceptions of power, especially in the hands of a few who control large organizations, corporations, and parts of the government, changed?
JG: Well, I'm not sure they've changed. When it comes to corporations, I've always been very skeptical of big business and big corporations, and I think a healthy skepticism is needed: There are so many corporations and so many industries. As far as the government, I think I've changed considerably since when I was a young lawyer. I never had a client—I've had a lot of criminal clients—but I never had one who I thought was really mistreated by the system. We had a pretty good system when I was practicing law; we had good judges and good prosecutors. But I went through the process of writing The Innocent Man, which is a true story, and I got into the world of wrongful convictions, and it has really shaken my faith in the judicial system. There are thousands of innocent people in prison right now, and they were sent there by police, prosecutors, and juries who believe the police and prosecutors. There are so many bad verdicts that happen; it really kind of shakes your faith in the system.
GR: You quit the Mississippi state senate in your second term because you "realized it was impossible to make changes." Do you hope by giving stories to these issues that you might effect change in another way? Is your writing infused with the idealism your young lawyers have?
JG: Yes, the idealism is there—that's me, I'm the writer. As far as changing things, I'm not sure the books have that big of an audience. What I try to do, when I write a book about an issue, is to entertain. You can't spend too much time on a soapbox. You've got to entertain. If you can get the reader to think about an issue—whether it's the death penalty, wrongful convictions, wrongful incarcerations, insurance fraud, or homelessness, whatever the issue is—if you can get the reader to think about that for the first or second time in the context of a popular novel, that's enough for me. Just to get people to think a different way maybe.
GR: In your previous book, Sycamore Row, you once again took on race relations and included a heavy-duty surprise reveal that relates to a history many Americans don't talk about. Are you consciously trying to bring these issues to light, especially with the climate of racial tension we live in today, where black men are disproportionately imprisoned, assaulted, and shot?
JG: You know, race is always going to be complicated in this country. There are always going to be tensions—I'm not sure they will ever go away. It's kind of what we have to deal with in our society as we struggle to find racial tolerance. Sometimes we make progress, and other times we are not making progress. Race is always going to be very complicated in this country, especially in the Deep South, with all of the horrible things that happened. I'm not trying to consciously bring back any of those issues; they've never gone away.
It might take a long time for them to go away, because a lot of people who did really bad things 40 and 50 years ago are still alive, and so many of them have not been brought to justice and probably never will be. There are a lot of secrets that are going to be buried with people who do bad things.
Then you look at the present day—you mentioned the incarceration rate for young black men—and it's a disgrace. Young black men are treated differently by the judicial system than young white men. As a result, we have a million young blacks in prison for nonviolent crimes, and they're stigmatized as convicted felons. Not only are they black, but now they're black convicted felons. And their lives are going to be very difficult once they get out. You have the issue of wrongful convictions: There are far more black people wrongly convicted than white people, and the reason is that blacks are simply treated worse in the judicial system than whites are.
You know, we struggle with these issues, we write about them, we explore them, we hope we can bring about some change, but it's always going to be difficult and complicated. For people like me who write about it, there are just an endless variety of good stories out there.
GR: I live in a city acutely aware of the problems inherent in Zero Tolerance policing under Mayor Giuliani and Stop and Frisk under Mayor Bloomberg. Do you think one of your future novels might address this kind of corruption and abuse of power?
JG: Well, certainly abuse of power. I want to write a book where I explore a couple things we've already talked about—the incarceration of young black men—but what I really want to explore is the sentencing disparities between black kids and white kids who come from the same amount of "crack," you know. The system treats them both very differently, and that's a book I want to write very soon. I'd like to bring some attention to the problem.
GR: Many Goodreads members are intensely interested in your writing process. Goodreads member Bruce asks, "What normally comes to you first, the character or the story?" Lbgage follows with, "I've often wondered if you work backward when you write. In other words, do you decide on an ending first, then work backward to support and embellish the ending?"
JG: Well, I don't call it looking backward. It's a process I go through that takes a long time and is not always that pleasant. But I make myself work out the final scene in a book before I write the first words. And to do that, you should always know where you're going. John Irving, a writer I really admire, has said he actually writes the last sentence before he writes the first sentence. I can't do that, but it's a wonderful way to write. Most writers don't do it because it just takes a lot of time and effort to sit down and carefully construct the story, outline it almost chapter by chapter, and see everything. When you do that, you see the witnesses. You see which characters may not be necessary, which subplots may not be necessary, or where you need something extra. It really forces you to flesh out the whole story. With Sycamore Row I couldn't wait to get to the final scene —I knew what it was going to be when I started. It was very climactic at the end.
So that's the way I write. As far as what comes first, plot or character—almost always plot, because my books are so plot driven. I'm always thinking about what would be a great plot. I'll read a newspaper article or something in a magazine about the law or a trial or a firm or something, and I'll think, "OK, I can take this story, change this and that, add some fiction to it"—and you've got a real hook, you've got something that can really grab the reader. That's how almost all books start. Occasionally I can think of a couple of times when I had a character in mind, but I never take that too far without the plot.
GR: Did you see A Time to Kill on Broadway?
JG: Yes, I was there opening night. It didn't have much of a run—it opened in mid-October and closed in mid-November; I think it had 35 shows or something. It just didn't quite sell enough tickets to justify keeping it on. It's very expensive to get a play to Broadway. I had nothing to do with the finances, but once they got it there, it's very expensive to keep it going, and you really have to sell a lot of tickets. I saw it three times, and the crowds were always nice, I thought—big crowds, just not quite enough ticket sales to keep it going. Which is a shame, because I thoroughly enjoyed the play. I'm probably not a very good critic of it, but I enjoyed it.
GR: Did you play a role in developing the script?
JG: No, I stay away from that. I know nothing about theater—even writing a movie script. That's not what I do. I read the first draft of the play probably five years ago, and I said, "I like this! This is really good." So they kept going, and we finally made it to Broadway, and it didn't last very long.
GR: For those few who aren't familiar with your oeuvre, what book would you point a Grisham novice to?
JG: One doesn't jump out more than the other, as far as what I would show to a novice. Calico Joe was a baseball book that I thoroughly enjoyed writing. Skipping Christmas was my first effort at humor, and I enjoyed that. The Innocent Man was a nonfiction book that still sticks with me because the story is so compelling and heartbreaking. The Testament is a book that I'm very proud of because it was so different—it was set in Brazil, and I went there to do research.
I've got favorites, but I love all of them.
GR: What are you currently reading?
JG: I'm reading a book called Natchez Burning by Greg Isles—he's an old buddy from Mississippi. It's a big, thick book, 775 pages, which is too thick for me, but I'm enjoying the book. I just read a nonfiction book called Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson, about his adventures defending death-row inmates in Alabama.
I tend to read a lot of nonfiction, obviously a lot of legal stuff. That's where my foundation is, that's where my home is, that's what I enjoy and understand. It also gives me ideas.
I loved Ian McEwan's latest book, The Children Act—I read it a couple of months ago; it's one of his better books. So that's what's keeping me busy.
GR: It's also keeping you up to date with research, since you're not really in the courtroom anymore, right?
JG: Not voluntarily. I haven't seen a courtroom in a long time. I walk in them all the time—if I'm in a town, I go find a courtroom, and hopefully no one's there. I'm fascinated by courtrooms, and I have a lot of interest in being there. But when I'm in a courtroom now, I'm usually being sued by somebody. That's not pleasant! Trial work is extremely stressful, and it's really tough on a lawyer to do it all the time. Looking back, I have fond memories of trials I had. But when you're actually doing it, there's not a whole lot of fun being in a courtroom.
GR: Goodreads member Chris wonders, "So many great movies have come from your novels; which actor pulled off one of your characters so well that even you, as their original creator, felt as if the part was written for them?" In the same vein, Maya B asks, "Which of your characters have resonated with you the most over the years, and why? If any were real, which would you be friends with?"
JG: Well, I have to go back to A Time to Kill and Sycamore Row, because that's where I'm from, and those characters are my characters and it's autobiographical. But even the sidekicks—the characters, the judges, the courthouse gang—that's where I come from, and those are the people I knew.
As far as the movies, The Rainmaker was one of Matt Damon's first big movies, and he was a lot younger. He wasn't nervous, but he wasn't a big star then, and he was very worried about the southern accent. We were on the set in Memphis, and I talked to him, and he kept listening to me talk, and he said, "I'm just not sure about the accent." I told him, "The worst thing you can do, Matt, is try to fake a southern accent. You can't do it. It's never been done; don't try it. Just be yourself." He really relaxed and did a great job in the movie. His sidekick, Danny DeVito, I thought nailed the role of Deck, the kind of sleazy paralawyer—not paralegal, but paralawyer—and I thought those two together really captured the two characters in the book.
GR: Stephen King's The Gunslinger, was written after Ed Dorn's magnum opus, Gunslinger, which was a book of poems. King called Dorn's poems "talismans of perfect writing." Are there any "talismans of perfect writing" for you?
JG: The Grapes of Wrath was a novel that meant a lot to me as a student. And I probably read The Grapes of Wrath more than any other book in my lifetime, just because of the story, the writing style, and what Steinbeck was able to do. As far as intelligent, smart suspense: The Little Drummer Girl by John le Carré—I still read that book occasionally, just to get put back in the suspense mode by someone who was at the top of his game when he wrote it. As far as plotting and suspense and efficiency with words, I'll go back and read Marathon Man by William Goldman because it's not a very big book, it really packs a lot of effort and energy and suspense, and it's beautifully and perfectly paced and timed. It made a great screenplay and a great movie because of that. Those three books come to mind.
GR: Many of your readers are often surprised to hear that you spent three years writing your first novel, A Time to Kill, which sold less than a 5,000-copy press run, and you bought 1,000 yourself. Do you regard writing as "work," and can you offer some words of encouragement or advice to aspiring writers?
JG: Sure, it's work. Some days the words flow, and some days they don't. Some days the characters are alive, and some days they're not. Some days the plot moves in the right direction, and some days it doesn't. It's always a struggle to get it right.
I laugh because I don't have a job; I don't really work that hard—I mean, these days I don't. Back then I worked hard because I was also a lawyer, and I had to [write] as a secret hobby whenever I could steal a half an hour here or there. That goes to the advice part—I don't give a lot of advice, but I tell aspiring writers all the time that until you reach the point where you're writing one page a day, you're not serious. I mean, you've got to get one page in per day. If you do that, then the pages are going to pile up pretty fast. That, and knowing where you're going: that goes back to the outlining. You outline a story, you know where you're going, you start writing, you do at least a page a day, with no exceptions—you're going to get somewhere! The pages are going to pile up, and that's what it takes.
GR: SharlzG also wonders about reader influence: "As someone who exploded into the writing scene with a number of big novels, do you feel an expectation to constantly create at that same level, and if so, how do you deal with the weight of those expectations? Do you feel that public expectation has helped in that evolution?"
JG: I really can't think about all the people who are going to buy the next book that I'm writing. You know, after 30 books I know that when I publish Gray Mountain, there are a lot of people who are going to buy it right off the bat and read it. These are the fans, and I'm thankful for them. But if I thought about all these people when I was writing, I'd be paralyzed. All I can do when I write is try to get the pages of words right every day. And you know, with the experiences I've had, I think I know what I'm doing. What I've learned is that with perseverance and discipline, I can get the book finished and have it to where I like it—the plot works for me, I know it's suspenseful. I know it's smart, I know it's clever, I know all these things—and once I've got it right for myself, so far it's worked in the marketplace. Again, that's all I can think about—I can't think about the expectations of all those people out there, because it would drive me crazy.
GR: Right. And you can't please all the people all the time.
JG: Well, you really can't, and you know, people have different favorites—some books some people don't like, some they love. I can't control that. All I can do is get the book as good as I can possibly get it, and then release it and hope for the best.
In his latest novel, Gray Mountain, New York lawyer Samantha Kofer takes an unpaid internship in Appalachia after getting downsized from her Wall Street firm. She stumbles on a high-stakes secret in tiny Brady, Virginia, population 2,200, where insular small-town politics mix with Big Coal interests. In this Goodreads exclusive, Grisham offers up a sampling of his reading habits and speaks passionately about the subject matter of his next novel: America's prison system and whom it affects most. We are also rewarded with his advice to a young Matt Damon on the set of The Rainmaker, a glimpse of how Grisham feels when entering courtrooms these days, and his thoughts on idealism and entertainment as they influence his writing.
John Grisham: The protagonist is a 29-year-old female lawyer from a big firm in New York who suddenly loses her job due to the Lehman Brothers collapse in 2008. She lost her job with a huge firm in Manhattan, she's suddenly out of work, and she's the heroine of the story.
GR: Big Coal plays a role in this book, as coal mining has always been a ubiquitous, but controversial presence in Appalachia. Since you've researched and queried power struggles in a variety of settings for decades now, have your perceptions of power, especially in the hands of a few who control large organizations, corporations, and parts of the government, changed?
JG: Well, I'm not sure they've changed. When it comes to corporations, I've always been very skeptical of big business and big corporations, and I think a healthy skepticism is needed: There are so many corporations and so many industries. As far as the government, I think I've changed considerably since when I was a young lawyer. I never had a client—I've had a lot of criminal clients—but I never had one who I thought was really mistreated by the system. We had a pretty good system when I was practicing law; we had good judges and good prosecutors. But I went through the process of writing The Innocent Man, which is a true story, and I got into the world of wrongful convictions, and it has really shaken my faith in the judicial system. There are thousands of innocent people in prison right now, and they were sent there by police, prosecutors, and juries who believe the police and prosecutors. There are so many bad verdicts that happen; it really kind of shakes your faith in the system.
GR: You quit the Mississippi state senate in your second term because you "realized it was impossible to make changes." Do you hope by giving stories to these issues that you might effect change in another way? Is your writing infused with the idealism your young lawyers have?
JG: Yes, the idealism is there—that's me, I'm the writer. As far as changing things, I'm not sure the books have that big of an audience. What I try to do, when I write a book about an issue, is to entertain. You can't spend too much time on a soapbox. You've got to entertain. If you can get the reader to think about an issue—whether it's the death penalty, wrongful convictions, wrongful incarcerations, insurance fraud, or homelessness, whatever the issue is—if you can get the reader to think about that for the first or second time in the context of a popular novel, that's enough for me. Just to get people to think a different way maybe.
GR: In your previous book, Sycamore Row, you once again took on race relations and included a heavy-duty surprise reveal that relates to a history many Americans don't talk about. Are you consciously trying to bring these issues to light, especially with the climate of racial tension we live in today, where black men are disproportionately imprisoned, assaulted, and shot?
JG: You know, race is always going to be complicated in this country. There are always going to be tensions—I'm not sure they will ever go away. It's kind of what we have to deal with in our society as we struggle to find racial tolerance. Sometimes we make progress, and other times we are not making progress. Race is always going to be very complicated in this country, especially in the Deep South, with all of the horrible things that happened. I'm not trying to consciously bring back any of those issues; they've never gone away.
It might take a long time for them to go away, because a lot of people who did really bad things 40 and 50 years ago are still alive, and so many of them have not been brought to justice and probably never will be. There are a lot of secrets that are going to be buried with people who do bad things.
Then you look at the present day—you mentioned the incarceration rate for young black men—and it's a disgrace. Young black men are treated differently by the judicial system than young white men. As a result, we have a million young blacks in prison for nonviolent crimes, and they're stigmatized as convicted felons. Not only are they black, but now they're black convicted felons. And their lives are going to be very difficult once they get out. You have the issue of wrongful convictions: There are far more black people wrongly convicted than white people, and the reason is that blacks are simply treated worse in the judicial system than whites are.
You know, we struggle with these issues, we write about them, we explore them, we hope we can bring about some change, but it's always going to be difficult and complicated. For people like me who write about it, there are just an endless variety of good stories out there.
GR: I live in a city acutely aware of the problems inherent in Zero Tolerance policing under Mayor Giuliani and Stop and Frisk under Mayor Bloomberg. Do you think one of your future novels might address this kind of corruption and abuse of power?
JG: Well, certainly abuse of power. I want to write a book where I explore a couple things we've already talked about—the incarceration of young black men—but what I really want to explore is the sentencing disparities between black kids and white kids who come from the same amount of "crack," you know. The system treats them both very differently, and that's a book I want to write very soon. I'd like to bring some attention to the problem.
GR: Many Goodreads members are intensely interested in your writing process. Goodreads member Bruce asks, "What normally comes to you first, the character or the story?" Lbgage follows with, "I've often wondered if you work backward when you write. In other words, do you decide on an ending first, then work backward to support and embellish the ending?"
JG: Well, I don't call it looking backward. It's a process I go through that takes a long time and is not always that pleasant. But I make myself work out the final scene in a book before I write the first words. And to do that, you should always know where you're going. John Irving, a writer I really admire, has said he actually writes the last sentence before he writes the first sentence. I can't do that, but it's a wonderful way to write. Most writers don't do it because it just takes a lot of time and effort to sit down and carefully construct the story, outline it almost chapter by chapter, and see everything. When you do that, you see the witnesses. You see which characters may not be necessary, which subplots may not be necessary, or where you need something extra. It really forces you to flesh out the whole story. With Sycamore Row I couldn't wait to get to the final scene —I knew what it was going to be when I started. It was very climactic at the end.
So that's the way I write. As far as what comes first, plot or character—almost always plot, because my books are so plot driven. I'm always thinking about what would be a great plot. I'll read a newspaper article or something in a magazine about the law or a trial or a firm or something, and I'll think, "OK, I can take this story, change this and that, add some fiction to it"—and you've got a real hook, you've got something that can really grab the reader. That's how almost all books start. Occasionally I can think of a couple of times when I had a character in mind, but I never take that too far without the plot.
GR: Did you see A Time to Kill on Broadway?
JG: Yes, I was there opening night. It didn't have much of a run—it opened in mid-October and closed in mid-November; I think it had 35 shows or something. It just didn't quite sell enough tickets to justify keeping it on. It's very expensive to get a play to Broadway. I had nothing to do with the finances, but once they got it there, it's very expensive to keep it going, and you really have to sell a lot of tickets. I saw it three times, and the crowds were always nice, I thought—big crowds, just not quite enough ticket sales to keep it going. Which is a shame, because I thoroughly enjoyed the play. I'm probably not a very good critic of it, but I enjoyed it.
GR: Did you play a role in developing the script?
JG: No, I stay away from that. I know nothing about theater—even writing a movie script. That's not what I do. I read the first draft of the play probably five years ago, and I said, "I like this! This is really good." So they kept going, and we finally made it to Broadway, and it didn't last very long.
GR: For those few who aren't familiar with your oeuvre, what book would you point a Grisham novice to?
JG: One doesn't jump out more than the other, as far as what I would show to a novice. Calico Joe was a baseball book that I thoroughly enjoyed writing. Skipping Christmas was my first effort at humor, and I enjoyed that. The Innocent Man was a nonfiction book that still sticks with me because the story is so compelling and heartbreaking. The Testament is a book that I'm very proud of because it was so different—it was set in Brazil, and I went there to do research.
I've got favorites, but I love all of them.
JG: I'm reading a book called Natchez Burning by Greg Isles—he's an old buddy from Mississippi. It's a big, thick book, 775 pages, which is too thick for me, but I'm enjoying the book. I just read a nonfiction book called Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson, about his adventures defending death-row inmates in Alabama.
I tend to read a lot of nonfiction, obviously a lot of legal stuff. That's where my foundation is, that's where my home is, that's what I enjoy and understand. It also gives me ideas.
I loved Ian McEwan's latest book, The Children Act—I read it a couple of months ago; it's one of his better books. So that's what's keeping me busy.
GR: It's also keeping you up to date with research, since you're not really in the courtroom anymore, right?
JG: Not voluntarily. I haven't seen a courtroom in a long time. I walk in them all the time—if I'm in a town, I go find a courtroom, and hopefully no one's there. I'm fascinated by courtrooms, and I have a lot of interest in being there. But when I'm in a courtroom now, I'm usually being sued by somebody. That's not pleasant! Trial work is extremely stressful, and it's really tough on a lawyer to do it all the time. Looking back, I have fond memories of trials I had. But when you're actually doing it, there's not a whole lot of fun being in a courtroom.
GR: Goodreads member Chris wonders, "So many great movies have come from your novels; which actor pulled off one of your characters so well that even you, as their original creator, felt as if the part was written for them?" In the same vein, Maya B asks, "Which of your characters have resonated with you the most over the years, and why? If any were real, which would you be friends with?"
JG: Well, I have to go back to A Time to Kill and Sycamore Row, because that's where I'm from, and those characters are my characters and it's autobiographical. But even the sidekicks—the characters, the judges, the courthouse gang—that's where I come from, and those are the people I knew.
As far as the movies, The Rainmaker was one of Matt Damon's first big movies, and he was a lot younger. He wasn't nervous, but he wasn't a big star then, and he was very worried about the southern accent. We were on the set in Memphis, and I talked to him, and he kept listening to me talk, and he said, "I'm just not sure about the accent." I told him, "The worst thing you can do, Matt, is try to fake a southern accent. You can't do it. It's never been done; don't try it. Just be yourself." He really relaxed and did a great job in the movie. His sidekick, Danny DeVito, I thought nailed the role of Deck, the kind of sleazy paralawyer—not paralegal, but paralawyer—and I thought those two together really captured the two characters in the book.
GR: Stephen King's The Gunslinger, was written after Ed Dorn's magnum opus, Gunslinger, which was a book of poems. King called Dorn's poems "talismans of perfect writing." Are there any "talismans of perfect writing" for you?
GR: Many of your readers are often surprised to hear that you spent three years writing your first novel, A Time to Kill, which sold less than a 5,000-copy press run, and you bought 1,000 yourself. Do you regard writing as "work," and can you offer some words of encouragement or advice to aspiring writers?
JG: Sure, it's work. Some days the words flow, and some days they don't. Some days the characters are alive, and some days they're not. Some days the plot moves in the right direction, and some days it doesn't. It's always a struggle to get it right.
I laugh because I don't have a job; I don't really work that hard—I mean, these days I don't. Back then I worked hard because I was also a lawyer, and I had to [write] as a secret hobby whenever I could steal a half an hour here or there. That goes to the advice part—I don't give a lot of advice, but I tell aspiring writers all the time that until you reach the point where you're writing one page a day, you're not serious. I mean, you've got to get one page in per day. If you do that, then the pages are going to pile up pretty fast. That, and knowing where you're going: that goes back to the outlining. You outline a story, you know where you're going, you start writing, you do at least a page a day, with no exceptions—you're going to get somewhere! The pages are going to pile up, and that's what it takes.
GR: SharlzG also wonders about reader influence: "As someone who exploded into the writing scene with a number of big novels, do you feel an expectation to constantly create at that same level, and if so, how do you deal with the weight of those expectations? Do you feel that public expectation has helped in that evolution?"
JG: I really can't think about all the people who are going to buy the next book that I'm writing. You know, after 30 books I know that when I publish Gray Mountain, there are a lot of people who are going to buy it right off the bat and read it. These are the fans, and I'm thankful for them. But if I thought about all these people when I was writing, I'd be paralyzed. All I can do when I write is try to get the pages of words right every day. And you know, with the experiences I've had, I think I know what I'm doing. What I've learned is that with perseverance and discipline, I can get the book finished and have it to where I like it—the plot works for me, I know it's suspenseful. I know it's smart, I know it's clever, I know all these things—and once I've got it right for myself, so far it's worked in the marketplace. Again, that's all I can think about—I can't think about the expectations of all those people out there, because it would drive me crazy.
GR: Right. And you can't please all the people all the time.
JG: Well, you really can't, and you know, people have different favorites—some books some people don't like, some they love. I can't control that. All I can do is get the book as good as I can possibly get it, and then release it and hope for the best.
Interview by Amy King for Goodreads. King is a poet and professor living in New York. She works with VIDA: Women in Literary Arts and moderates the Goodreads Poetry Group.
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Zevstar
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Oct 09, 2014 06:31AM
Nice to see an interview that is more than just promotional. King's questions were more interesting than the usual interview questions. Boss Job!
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Zevstar wrote: "Nice to see an interview that is more than just promotional. King's questions were more interesting than the usual interview questions. Boss Job!"Agreed! Grisham's books aren't necessarily the kind I tend to seek out (although when I happen to come across and start reading a good thriller I tend to enjoy it), but his remarks here about the imbalances in the legal system, racial tensions, idealism, and the writing process itself intrigue me and make me more curious about the man and his books. He comes across as smart and down-to-earth and thoughtful about things that matter--not simply as an author trying to sell his books. Very cool interview.
What a refreshing interview! It's high time we have something that isn't purely promotional, and instead actually discusses the viscera of writing. More interviews by poets, more by Amy King!
I was never really a Grisham fan before reading this interview, but I am now. The interviewer drew him out, got him to talk about his aspirations as a writer and as a person, which was all new to me. I'd always just seen JG as the mega-best selling author of courtroom procedurals...now I see there's so much more going on behind his writing - a passion and a morality. Thanks, Goodreads, for showing me that side. I also enjoyed his take on the writing process; that's always an area that interests me, and I thank the interviewer for bringing that out so fully. Nice job all around!
I enjoyed reading this interview with Grisham... intelligent, thoughtful questions and answers.
Grisham is a really interesting person. I am happy to read an interview with him that elicits such thoughtful responses. Thanks!
Great interview! This actually made me interested in reading John Grisham again.
A thoughtful interview -- excellent questions that elicited interesting and real answers.
I always love hearing the books that authors are reading. Overall, a very interesting interview!
"You can't spend too much time on a soapbox. You've got to entertain."I love the candor of this interview, and I think authors like Grisham confronting major political and social issues do impact popular opinion while acknowledging "[t]here are always going to be tensions—I'm not sure they will ever go away." Interesting interview...
So great to see a consideration of how art and politics intersect! Something I've been pondering a lot lately . . .
Great interview, so thorough. What an intelligent author, probably was a good lawyer. I'm reading Sycamore Row right now.
Hmm this interview has me pondering if I should give Grisham another try… always had problems dissociating from Tom Cruise cooties...
What a fantastic intelligent and interesting interview! I'm going to recommend it to my creative writing students as a model of excellence on how to conduct and write and interview. And I'm going to recommend it to my writing friends who are interested in all things Grisham. Love the writerly advice that "Until you reach the point where you're writing a page a day, you're not serious. You've got to get one page in per day."
Excellent interview! I haven't read Grisham in a long time, but I was a big fan back in high school. In fact, I only read the interview because it was done by a poet I love, Amy King! I appreciate the focus on the writing and research process. This makes me want to revisit Grisham's novels. Great work!
Thanks so much for this great interview...
Wow Amy! You did great with the questions on this and he certainly had some interesting and inspiring answers!
Terrific interview, this gave me a strong and positive sense of not just Grisham the writer, but also Grisham, the man, his passions, his writing life and his frank good nature. What's great about this interview is that it does not feel like one of those 'stock' interviews. Well done!
Nice catch, Amy King.
Fabulous interview! The range in the questions keeps the interview interesting & rich along with bringing out a very personal side of John Grisham. I'd love to see more interviews like this!
This is the first time I've actually read anything Grisham has to say, being a literary snob and all. And I really enjoyed hearing from him! As usual, Amy King asks all the right questions. Goodreads was lucky to snag her for this.
John Grisham is a household name because my husband faithfully reads all his books and together we enjoy all the films associated with his books. Amy King's interview with Grisham gives me a whole new perspective and respect for this writer.
I especially enjoyed hearing how he works out the final scene first. Finding out his model is John Irving, a favorite writer of mine, also made me pay attention. I didn't know Irving writes the final sentence of the book first!
So much to admire in this wonderful interview! Amy King has really delivered interesting questions to good effect!
This is a great interview! So much better than just the usual fluff, puff n' promote piece...more like this, please!
What a great interview! Your thoughtful questions elicited some fascinating answers.
I'm not really into books like Grisham's but now I'm intrigued. I appreciate that he wants to write about racial disparities in the justice system. I'm curious how he'll translate that topic into a novel. I'm just disappointed, as I usually am, that he doesn't mention one single female author.
Love King, Love Grisham_ logically for different reasons. Great to have them together.
This interview is heads and shoulders above the standard fare. King asked probing, relevant questions -- which Grisham seemed happy to engage. The interview reveals his thoughtfulness and social conscience -- which I did not fully appreciate before. Kudos to Amy King!
Thanks for introducing me to Grisham, the person. I grew up in the mid-south, am a big fan of his books but wasn't really sure how I felt about the man. Now I'm a bigger fan.
What a great interview--so deep and broad--we get to know the writer, not just the works, through these carefully considered questions and answers. I'm especially excited by this comment about Gray Mountain: "The protagonist is a 29-year-old female lawyer from a big firm in New York who suddenly loses her job due to the Lehman Brothers collapse in 2008." Now that I know the book features a female protagonist, I'm awaiting Gray Mountain's release!
The best interviews feel intimate and this one does. I loved learning that Grisham visits empty courtrooms when he travels. Little details like that give insight to the artist's imagination. It was gratifying to hear about the social inequities that will inform his future projects and it allows the reader to see his work has a depth beyond suspense writing. This interview allows Grisham's process to be the star. Readers want to know why his storytelling is so compelling. He's invested in the stories and characters because they matter.
Loved the interview. It gave me a look into Grisham I never thought I would see.
Great interview Amy - nice balance if questions that really allowed us some small insight to both John the person, and John the author. As someone else noted, it's great to have any interview that is not merely a cover for marketing a new book. I've always been a fan of John's books but, as someone who began their career as a paralegal with the intent of becoming a lawyer, but who left because of a strong conviction over what the profession had become, I feel more of an affinity having read this interview.
I have been a fan since A time to Kill and The Chamber ! I was so glad when Sycamore Row came out! I hope we see more of Jake .The Innocent Man just killed me. I try to wait for the paperback but can't always do that .Thanks for the interview !! Donna Winder
I've always been a fan of John Grisham. Great interview!
Excellent interview. I find myself very intrigued about where the stories come from; especially from an author who has written many along similar lines, but with each one unique and individual. It was great to be able to read more about his writing process and how he views his own works.
Outstanding interview -I've been a fan of Grisham's since his first and I'm reading Sycamore Way now. so I'm now a fan of Amy King's.Her skill as an interviewer is, in a word,excellent.
Grisham in this interview, as in his hugely successful books,again sweeps away my cherished prejudices about lawyers.
What a great interview, Amy! I started reading his books a couple of years ago and then rapidly consumed about a dozen of them. They are always absorbing, fast moving and cover a lot of ground that you never realised before that you find interesting. How does the man do it? Some of the answers to that were in your interview. John Grisham is a fantastic example to all aspiring writers of novels.
What a lovely interview Amy - good job. Now there's a writer who can weave some amazing stories. An inspiration to all us aspiring newbies.
I regularly conduct literary interviews for a well known print magazine for the writing community. There are very few models of an incisive literary interview. Even The Paris Review misses as much as it hits. What Amy King has done in her interview with John Grisham is just what a literary interview *should* do: encourage the writer, with a range of questions (some deliberately peripheral) to allow the reader access to the places, intentions, and beliefs NOT expressly revealed in the literary work.Thank you Amy King. I'm looking forward to reading more of your interviews.
Great interview. Grisham is one of my favorite authors.
Outstanding interview - I felt like I was in the room. Great questions, and I agree with Leslie - you encouraged the writer and I think it made for a much better interview. I too am looking forward to more interviews from Amy King.
I also agree about the quality of the interview and the thoughtful comments about the conviction rates of young blacks and the racial tension in the US were excellent. Just one further question that was implied but not really answered - does John Grisham support the death penalty? Considering he agrees there are many innocent men in prison.
I am a great fan of John Grisham. Wonderful interview. I see no mention of The Painted House. This was one of his books which explored a different subject matter than his legal dramas. It was just a beautifully written almost poetic book to me. I am so glad to have read it
Outstanding & honest interview, Amy. We know of the writer and now, of the man.
Thank you for a great interview with one of my favorite authors. I am a second-generation reader of all-Grisham books! My mother insisted on having first edition hardbacks! Had the whole collection until her death in 2009. I passed on the collection to my grandson and his wife, who are both now practicing law in FL. As a former litigation legal secretary/certified legal assistant for over 25 years, I have always loved the courtroom scenes in Grisham's books. I could tell stories of my own behind-the-scenes experiences!! Thank you again Ms. King and Mr. Grisham for an enlightening interview.
Interviews like these are why readers write and writers read! Intriguing and fresh questions to elicit interesting responses. I appreciate knowing about the writer as a human interacting in our world, making choices.
I am so glad he loved writing Calico Joe because it is my favorite of all of Grisham's novels. A good story, good characters, a meaningful outcome...equal a great novel. Plus I love baseball.
can't believe someone has not read John Grisham he is one of my most favourite writers, I just wish I could be inside his brain to see how he ticks, love all his books and can't wait to read them when they come out.
I have no interest in his books at all, and yet this interview made me interested in him as a person and as a writer. It takes a really good interview to do that. Now I'm going to look around and see if there's any other interviews this good on this site.
Exceptional interview questions which elicited thoughtful and generous responses. Thank you, Amy King. Love Grisham even more now!
