Sycamore Row
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Unriddled mysteries about the plot
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I will be quite curious to see the responses to the great question you have posed as I just finished reading this book. I must admit that I only gave it 3 1/2 stars. I found it to be way too formulaic and predictable. But I did enjoy the predictable journey Grisham took me on!!
#3 I thought the earlier will was sort of a decoy set up by Seth so that everyone thought they were getting something. He didn't want the hoopla to happen while he was alive to see it. So he waited until the day before he died to write it, so that he wouldn't have to deal with the kids' outrage. Or that was my take on it. #2 I wondered about that as well, since Lettie didn't have a birth certificate and they didn't have a way to do a DNA test (if they even did those back then).
I just finished the book and I figured that Seth was just human, and he simply hadn't decided how he would make amends to Lettie before his final days. He thought hiring her on as a housekeeper was enough, but only after he was sick and dying, and assessing his whole life and relationship with his kids, did he decide that they didn't deserve to inherit from him, and he could compensate Lettie for his father's murder of her grandfather and for robbing the Rindses of their land. I think that's more than plausible. He hadn't had it planned all along. Besides. Who was there taking care of him as he died? Lettie. Not his children.
My only plot gripe is the fact that a smart man like Seth wouldn't mention a word or hint about what he and his brother had seen in any of the letters or the will he left behind! I mean, why wouldn't he say something about righting a wrong done to Lettie's people as reason for leaving everything to her? That's what I found a bit unreasonable.Even if he didn't spell it out for them, he could've alluded to it so it didn't look like he was leaving it to her on a whim, you know?
Millenia wrote: "My only plot gripe is the fact that a smart man like Seth wouldn't mention a word or hint about what he and his brother had seen in any of the letters or the will he left behind! I mean, why wouldn..."That's a good point. He could have left the reason for the inheritance in his will and saved everyone a lot of trouble (though the kids would have still contested it, I'm sure). It would have been very helpful to Jake and the estate lawyers.
Lena wrote: "#3 I thought the earlier will was sort of a decoy set up by Seth so that everyone thought they were getting something. He didn't want the hoopla to happen while he was alive to see it. So he waited..."Hey Lena,
As regards your thought of earlier will being a sort of decoy, novel is clear that the kids did not know what this (earlier) will contained (refer page 40-41: conversation between the kids). They of course had no idea about the size of estate also (refer page 95).
And I agree with Millenia's point also (about not clarifying in his latter will why was he leaving it all to Lettie). This is another weakness in the story. Now if we have to find a reason - maybe, not a nice man, he wanted it this way thinking he owes no explanation to anybody. He wanted them to suffer. Now that is the problem - Grisham has left it upon us, the readers, to make our own assumptions to cover the gaping holes he forgot to cover in the story line. I am helping Millenia imagining explanations for his points and he is imagining for me. So as regards Millenia's suggestions to my issues, well that is the best that can be assumed to achieve closure in our minds although (i) The novel gives a clear impression that the relationship between the father and kids was cold throughout and it is not that it went cold in the last one year (ii) Any hospital / nursing staff who we pay takes good care of us when we are sick (and dying) but that does not mean we leave our estate to that hospital or nurse. It is not that they are rendering selfless service on their own volition, deserving this kind of expression of gratitude from our side.
You're right. I forgot that the kids didn't know the content of the previous will.
I enjoyed the 'mysteries of the plot' as, unlike so many other "formulaic" books (sic)/ - that is to say 'novels' these mysteries wove through the novel a web of complexity that defied solving. We readers had to accept the plausibilities offered by the author and then enjoy the outcomes and consequences of behaviors of each individual and group as they transgressed through those plausibilities. I enjoyed the novel very much and felt it well deserved the 3 or 4 stars most readers gave it. To my mind, it certainly was not a 5 star read; but neither was it less than three. It was too good for the latter and not literary enough for the former.
I guess what I am offering to those feeling a bit short-changed, is that Grisham had to do some darn good thinking and imagining to come up with the situations proffered to us all. It kept my 'mind' on edge through all of the reading. I found that much better than having my bum on the edge ! :-)
While I enjoyed the book, I had the same questions: If, as Jake says in his closing argument Seth had it all planned from the beginning - from the time he hired Lettie, why the first will? In fact, why not just gift her the money while he was alive? His kids had no idea how much he had so there would not have been a fight. Of course, there would not have been a book then either.
I see the book as a series of circles. The overlaps of lives beocme an area that becomes the center of the story of legacy. The layers of the legacy are part of some big overlaps in the various lives during time. The exampls I would use would be similar to dating in high school. Some dating does not work during a certain period and that event becomes part of other failures in relationships in other times and with other people. But this book centers on the main event of the death of Jake and how it invades the other circle.
My book club loved this book and was so glad that the Judge kept insisting that Seth's brother be found. And what a story he told. DeBois wrote that in the South, blacks "huddled for safety" and when they couldn't find it, they became part of the biggest migration in the world. In Grisham's book, we can see why.
It's 4 stars for me. I listened to the audiobook while a friend read the hardcover. She didn't enjoy reading about the side characters as much as I enjoyed meeting them in my car! Seth gave Ozzie money for both campaigns and Ozzie never spoke of it. If he had given money to too many people, it would become known that he had money to give away, and he didn't want people to know about his fortune. If he had given Lettie money to avoid the will fight, her life would have changed too drastically too quickly with a husband like Simeon, and everyone's life would have been put under the microscope.
Seth may have hired Lettie because by then he was pretty sure she was a Rines and he wanted to help her and her family out with a job and pay raises, while he kept on digging. We don't know this because nobody can ask Seth how he dealt with events of the past.
He made a fortune for the satisfaction of having money that no one could take away from him, and he wrote a standard will because that's just what people do when they know they don't have much longer to live.
Seth knew about how old the little girl was back in the day. Maybe Seth, who had connections and money to spend any way he liked, had someone picking through records just like Jake did, and he could've been collecting that information in a file cabinet in one of his many out-of-state companies, right up to and including the time he got sick, so nobody would have found the files.
The past completely defined Ansel's life, but we don't know how Seth dealt with same. Maybe now he had enough "proof" to satisfy himself that Lettie was who he thought she was and the timing was right. He was sick of being sick but, while he still could, he wanted to do the best thing he could do to help Ansel and Lettie find peace. The will was the thing but it was never about the money.
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Maybe I missed something. Will appreciate if you fellas help me un-riddle the following:
1. Per the plot, Seth called Lettie on his own three years back (and 50 years after the painful incident) and offered her the job. It is a given that he kept track of Lois and then Lettie. One minor point is why he waited so many years to correct the misdeeds of his forefathers. But that is only a minor point.
2. Surprisingly, Jake and Lettie said latter is the daughter of Lois despite no proof or evidence and got it accepted hands down by the counter-parties within minutes. I mean if I were the lawyer, I would de-couple the things here. Ancil/Seth's sense of guilt and desire to correct the injustice is fine but wait a min, is this lady the right candidate??? How do we know. Maybe Seth made a mistake here. But this is a minor point. I am more baffled by the issue that follows below.
3. Lastly, Seth knew about Lettie (it is a given, right?) all along and offered her job 3 years back. After 2 years, he creates a will bequeathing his 80% estate to his kids?? And within one year thereafter he changes it in favour of Lettie cutting his kids off entirely with so much bitterness????? What happened in one year which caused him change his mind? It was the same Lettie which was there one year back also and those were the same kids (when he was drafting the will in Sep 87). So if I were the lawyer, I would combine point 2 and 3. I would say if really Seth was so sympathetic to Lettie, he would not create the Sep 87 will. Obviously, his sympathy was limited to offering her a job only if really it was the same Lettie - daughter of Lois daughter of the guy lynched. Or otherwise she was not the daughter of that Lois. He was insane or under undue influence indeed to turn so bitter against his kids within a course of just one year. Point is not the will of 88 alone. Point is drastic change in will between 87 and 88. I would appreciate this (change) happening if (i) Seth came to know about Lettie's blood line only during this year AND (ii) Either Seth's kids did something so bad during this time (87 to 88) or Seth came to know something so bad about them during this time that not only did he cut them off but also he openly turned bitter against them. I mean it is ok he could have excluded them and changed his earlier will after knowing about the Lettie's bloodline but why would he show so much hatred towards his kids after bequeathing them 80% of his estate just one year earlier.
Unless you guys help me understand these points, I would blame that Grisham has short-changed his readers in this novel. Important to add, I have read almost all Grisham's novels (barring one or two), and after I found Archer repeating himself "Sons of Fortune" onwards, it has been Grisham and Grisham only for me.
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