21
Jan
Born on
February 8, 1955, in Jonesboro, Arkansas, John Grisham worked as an attorney
and Mississippi legislator before becoming a best-selling novelist with works
like The Firm, The Pelican Brief and A
Time to Kill, all of which were turned into hit films. Grisham has
continued to publish an array of titles, such as Bleachers and The
Litigators, and has also worked in screenwriting, as seen with the 2003
baseball film Mickey.
He
developed a love for books early on. Grisham studied accounting at Mississippi
State University and then law at the University of Mississippi, graduating in
1981.
After
starting his law career as a tax attorney, Grisham set up a practice doing
personal injury and criminal defense work in Southaven, and in 1983 he earned a
seat in the state legislature on the Democratic ticket, serving through the
rest of the decade.
During a trial in 1984, Grisham heard the horrifying details of a young
girl recounting her experience of surviving rape. This catalyzed the attorney
to start writing a novel that examined the issue, focusing on the actions of a
fictional father and an attorney. The finished book, A Time to
Kill, would initially get a 5,000-copy printing from Wynwood Press.
After leaving politics in 1990 and closing
his law practice, Grisham moved to Oxford, Mississippi with his family and
devoted himself more completely to his new calling. The galley of his next
novel, The Firm, ended up being circulated in
Hollywood, and the film rights to the book were bought by Paramount for more
than half a million dollars. The novel was sold to Doubleday. The Firm(1991)
was on The New
York Times best-seller
list for nearly 50 weeks, becoming the top-selling book of the year. The film
version was released in 1993 and starred Tom Cruise, Holly Hunter and Gene Hackman. A Time to Kill would later be picked up as a
paperback by Dell Publishing and became a best seller as well.
Information retrieved from http://www.biography.com/people/john-grisham, in December 2016
Image retrieved from https://mysteryscenemag.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=89:john-grisham-testifies&catid=46:feature&Itemid =191, in December 2016
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