Republic of the Philippines
Surigao Del Sur State University
Tandag, Surigao Del Sur
BOOK REVIEW IN LITERATURE 2 ( THE FIRM )
Submmited by:
Ermie Jane R. Otagan
(BEED-IV)
Submmited to:
Ms. Lady Sol Azarcon-Suazo
(Instructor)
OCTOBER 2011 Title : THE FIRM About the Author
John Ray Grisham, Jr. (born February 8, 1955) is an American author, best known for his popular legal thrillers. John Grisham graduated from Mississippi State University before attending the University of Mississippi School of Law in 1981 and practiced criminal law for about a decade. He also served in the House of Representatives in Mississippi from January 1984 to September 1990. Beginning writing in 1984, he had his first novel A Time To Kill published in June 1989. As of 2008, his books had sold over 250 million copies worldwide. A Galaxy British Book Awards winner, Grisham is one of only three authors to sell two million copies on a first printing, the others being Tom Clancy and J. K. Rowling.
Early life and education
John Grisham, the second oldest of five siblings, was born in Jonesboro, Arkansas, to Wanda Skidmore Grisham and John Grisham. His father worked as a construction worker and a cotton farmer, while his mother was a homemaker. When Grisham was four years old, his family started traveling around the South, until they finally settled in Southaven in DeSoto County, Mississippi. As a child, Grisham wanted to be a baseball player. Despite the fact that Grisham's parents lacked formal education, his mother encouraged her son to read and prepare for college.
He went to the Northwest Mississippi Community College in Senatobia, Mississippi and later attended Delta State University in Cleveland.Grisham drifted so much during his time at the college that he changed colleges three times before completing a degree. He graduated from Mississippi State University in 1977, receiving a BS degree in accounting. He later enrolled in the University of Mississippi School of Law to become a tax lawyer, but his interest shifted to general civil litigation. He graduated in 1983 with a JD degree specializing in criminal law.
Marriage and family
Grisham married Renee Jones on May 8, 1981, and the couple have two children together: Shea and Ty. The "family splits their time between their Victorian home on a farm" outside Oxford, Mississippi, "and a home near Charlottesville, Virginia." In 2008, he and his wife bought a condominium at McCorkle Place in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. He and his wife also teach in Sunday school in First Baptist Church of Oxford.
Career Early career Grisham started working for a nursery as a teenager, watering bushes for US$1.00 an hour. He was soon promoted to a fence crew for US$1.50 an hour. He wrote about the job: "there was no future in it." At 16, Grisham took a job with a plumbing contractor; he "never drew inspiration from that miserable work."
Through a contact of his father, he managed to find work on a highway asphalt crew in Mississippi. He was seventeen then. It was during this time that an unfortunate incident got him "serious" about college. A fight had broken out among the crew on a Friday, with gunfire from which Grisham ran to the restroom to escape. He did not come out until after the police had "hauled away rednecks". He hitchhiked home and started thinking about college.
His next work was in retail, as a salesclerk in a department store men's underwear section, which he described as "humiliating". After deciding to quit, he stayed when offered a raise. He was given another raise after asking to be transferred to toys and then to appliances. A confrontation with a company spy posing as a customer convinced him to leave the store.
By this time, Grisham was halfway through college. Planning to become a tax lawyer, he was soon overcome by "the complexity and lunacy" of it. He decided to return to his hometown as a trial lawyer.
Law and politics Grisham practiced law for about a decade and also won election as a Democrat in the Mississippi state legislature from 1983 to 1990 at an annual salary of US$8,000. By his second term at the Mississippi state legislature, he was the vice- chairman of the Apportionment and Elections Committee and a member of several other committees.
Grisham's writing career blossomed with the success of his second book, The Firm, and he gave up practicing law, except for returning briefly in 1996 to fight for the family of a railroad worker who was killed on the job. His official site states that "He was honoring a commitment made before he had retired from the law to become a full-time writer. Grisham successfully argued his clients' case, earning them a jury award of US$683,500 — the biggest verdict of his career." Writing career This house in Lepanto, Arkansas was the house used in the Hallmark Hall of Fame movie A Painted House
Each year after being elected to the Mississippi House of Representatives, Grisham would spend from January to March in the state capitol dreaming of a big case.
Grisham said the big case came in 1984, but it was not his case. As he was hanging around the court, he overheard a 12-year-old girl telling the jury what had happened to her. Her story intrigued Grisham and he began watching the trial. He saw how the members of the jury cried as she told them about having been raped and beaten. It was then, Grisham later wrote in The New York Times, that a story was born. Musing over "what would have happened if the girl's father had murdered her assailants",Grisham took three years to complete his first book, A Time to Kill.
Finding a publisher was not easy. The book was rejected by 28 publishers before Wynwood Press, an unknown publisher, agreed to give it a modest 5,000-copy printing. It was published in June 1989. The day after Grisham completed A Time to Kill, he began work on his second novel, the story of an ambitious young attorney "lured to an apparently perfect law firm that was not what it appeared." The Firm remained on the The New York Times' bestseller list for 47 weeks, and became the bestselling novel of 1991.
Beginning with A Painted House in 2001, the author broadened his focus from law to the more general rural South, but continued to write legal thrillers.
Named in libel suit
On September, 2007, former Pontotoc County, Oklahoma, District Attorney Bill Peterson, former Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation agent Gary Rogers, and criminalist Melvin Hett filed a civil suit for libel against Grisham and two other authors. They claimed that Grisham and the others critical of Peterson and his prosecution of murder cases conspired to commit libel and generate publicity for themselves by portraying the plaintiffs in a false light and intentionally inflicting emotional distress. Grisham was named due to his publication of the non-fiction book, The Innocent Man. He examined the faults in the investigation and trial of defendants in the murder of a cocktail waitress in Ada, Oklahoma, and the exoneration by DNA evidence more than 12 years later of wrongfully convicted defendants Ron Williamson and Dennis Fritz. The judge dismissed the libel case on September 18, 2008, saying, "The wrongful convictions of Ron Williamson and Dennis Fritz must be discussed openly and with great vigor.
John Grisham Room
The Mississippi State University Libraries, Manuscript Division, maintains the John Grisham Room, an archive containing materials generated during the author's tenure as Mississippi State Representative and relating to his writings.
Grisham's lifelong passion for baseball is expressed in his novel A Painted House and in his support of Little League activities in both Oxford, Mississippi, and Charlottesville, Virginia. He wrote the original screenplay for and produced the baseball movie Mickey, starring Harry Connick, Jr.. The movie was released on DVD in April 2004. He remains a fan of Mississippi State University's baseball team and wrote about his ties to the university and the Left Field Lounge in the introduction for the book Dudy Noble Field: A Celebration of MSU Baseball.
Grisham is well known within the literary community for his efforts to support the continuing literary tradition of his native South. He has endowed scholarships and writers' residencies in the University of Mississippi's English Department and Graduate Creative Writing Program. He was the founding publisher of the Oxford American, a magazine devoted to literary writing. The magazine is famous for its annual music issue, copies of which include a compilation CD featuring contemporary and classic Southern musicians in genres ranging from blues andgospel to country western and alternative rock.
In an October 2006 interview on the Charlie Rose Show, Grisham stated that he usually takes only six months to write a book and that his favorite author is John le Carré. INTRODUCTION
It opens with young lawyer, Mitch McDeere - just out of college - looking for a law firm to start with. As he is being interviewed by the firm that eventually hires him - it appears to be a job that is too good to be true - and of course, turns out nothing like the way he hoped. In the beginning, everything appears to be working out perfectly - but as time goes on, he starts to notice some unusual characteristics about his employers - who do not seem to understand the concept of privacy.
By now, it is obvious that this law firm is corrupt. Unbeknownst to Mitch, the FBI had already been looking into this corruption also. In addition to having the firm under surveillance, the FBI decides to use Mitch to get them the evidence they need to indict the Firm. Unfortunately, Mitch's employers set him up in a comprising situation to use as blackmail. This puts him in a very difficult situation to assist the FBI...
PLOT
Mitchell Y. McDeere is a law student who graduated third in his class at Harvard Law School. Mitch is married to his high school sweetheart, Abby. They also attended college together. His brother Ray is serving a prison term, and his other brother, Rusty who died in Vietnam. Mitch has offers from law firms in New York and Chicago but eventually decides to join Bendini, Lambert and Locke, a small tax law firm based in Memphis. The firm seduces him by offering him a large salary, a lease on a new BMW 3-series automobile and a low interest mortgage on a house. Soon after he joins, his new colleagues help him study and pass his bar exam. At the firm, the first priority is for the associate to pass the bar exam. Two of Mitch's colleagues die in a scuba diving accident in the Cayman Islands the week he starts at the firm. Mitch finds the deaths unsettling, but settles down, works hard towards his dream of becoming a successful employee of the firm. During a memorial service at the firm for the two unfortunate attorneys, Mitch notices plaques commemorating three other attorneys who died while working at the firm. Suspicious of what happened to them, he hires a private investigator, Eddie Lomax, an ex-cell mate of his brother Ray, to investigate the deaths of the attorneys. Lomax discovers that all five of the deceased attorneys died under questionable circumstances: two in the diving accident, and the other three in a car accident, a hunting accident and a suicide, respectively. Lomax warned Mitch to be careful. Soon after delivering his report to Mitch, Lomax is murdered. Just as he passes his bar exam, Wayne Tarrance, an FBI agent, confronts Mitch. Mitch gradually learns from the FBI that the firm is actually part of the white collar operations of the Morolto crime family of Chicago. For years, the Moroltos have lured new lawyers from poor backgrounds into the firm with promises of wealth and security. By the time a lawyer is aware of the firm's actual operations, he cannot leave. No lawyer has escaped the firm alive, as the recent deaths of his two colleagues show. Mitch learns that his house, office and car are bugged. He and Abby are also routinely followed, making his meetings with the FBI dangerous. Pressure from both the firm and the FBI, who warns him he will regret not cooperating later on if he chooses to ignore them, force Mitch to make a decision quickly. Desperate to find a way out and stay alive in the process, Mitch makes a deal with the FBI, in which he gets two million dollars and the release of his brother, if he collects enough evidence to indict the firm. Mitch tells Tarrance that he can obtain enough evidence to indict half the firm, but the information obtained through those indictments will prove the existence of an illegal conspiracy—giving the government theammunition it needs to obtain search warrants for the firm building and files that will provide the evidence to completely destroy the firm and the Morolto family. In order to do so, however, Mitch must disclose information about his clients, and thus end his career as a lawyer (though in truth, the attorney-client privilege in most U.S. states, including Tennessee, does not apply to situations where a lawyer knows that a crime is taking place). Working with Lomax's secretary and lover, Tammy, Mitch begins to copy confidential documents and makes plans to deliver them to the FBI as planned. Meanwhile, the firm becomes suspicious of Mitch, and with the assistance of "Alfred", a mole in the FBI, they discover Mitch's plan. Once Mitch learns of this, he runs from both the FBI and Mafia with his brother who escaped from jail, and his wife. He steals ten million dollars from a Grand Cayman bank account of the firm. Mitch manages to escape to the Caribbean with the help of Barry Abanks, a scuba diving business owner whose son died in the incident where the firm killed the two lawyers, while the FBI gets the evidence they need to bust the firm through the 10,000 documents Mitch and Abby copied from the firm, indicting them for everything from laundering money to mail fraud. At the end, Mitch, Abby and Ray go into hiding and are quietly enjoying their newfound wealth in the Caribbean region. Characters
Mitchell Y. McDeere: An ambitious law student who graduates with honors from Harvard. He is seduced by the money and perks the firm offers until he is notified by the FBI that the firm is part of the Morolto crime family. He is almost caught by the firm, but escapes with $12 million (both the money the FBI paid him and the money he stole from the Moroltos) and survives. He retires to the islands of the Caribbean with Abby and Ray.
Abby McDeere: Wife of Mitch McDeere and a kindergarten teacher in a prominent school in Memphis. She is stressed by the long hours Mitch spends at the firm, then by the truth about the firm and eventually helped him escape
Wayne Tarrance: An organized crime specialist from New York and veteran FBI agent. He is not very cautious. He tries to help Mitch, but fails to protect him. Mitch and Tarrance are now bitter at each other.
Ray McDeere: The brother of Mitch McDeere. He's a convicted felon who killed a man in a bar fight. Dishonorably discharged from the army. He's a great linguist who learned several languages. He escapes prison with the help of the FBI and Mitch, and later aids Mitch in his escape.
Eddie Lomax: An ex-con and prison friend of Ray McDeere; a private investigator who works for Mitch in investigating the five dead lawyers. He is later murdered by one of the Morolto gunmen.
Tammy Hemphill: Secretary and lover of Eddie. She becomes frightened when Eddie is killed. She greatly aids Mitch in stealing the files and making his escape. She is rewarded with $1 million by Mitch.
Oliver Lambert: Originally an unsuspecting early joiner of the firm, later unwillingly drawn into the conspiracy. He's now a veteran and head of the firm.
Nathan Locke: He grew up on the streets of Chicago and has served the Moroltos since the age of ten. He is a major figure in the Morolto crime family, described as "evil, eccentric, has startling black, laser eyes".
Bill DeVasher: A former police detective, now a thug and security head of the firm. He is in charge of monitoring the firm's lawyers and carrying out the Moroltos' dirty work. He blackmails Mitch. Tony "Two-Ton" Berkler: A thug with an impressive record of convictions. A loyal thug to the Morolto family. He helps in the search for Mitch McDeere.
Aaron "The Nordic" Rimmer: A thug for the Morolto family. He has strong Nordic features and is nearly successful in catching Mitch several times. He is later strangled by Ray McDeere.
Lou Lazarov: An underboss of the Morolto crime family. A close associate of Joey Morolto (the head of the Morolto crime family). Former actor.
Joey Morolto (The Priest): The boss of the Morolto crime family. The younger brother of Mickey Morolto, who has limited business with the crime family. Joey Morolto is the son of the Old Man Morolto (the first boss of the Morolto family)
Settings Harvard Law School New York Chicago Memphis Cayman Islands Carebian Regions Vietnam
Themes
Money
The novel wanted to show that with money you can really manipulate the system. You can buy your way out of trouble. That novel shows how to send the massed troops of justice in the wrong direction, and how to move dirty money among numbered accounts.
Love
Sweet love theme for Mitch and abbey, when their marriage is endangered by the firm. They still manage to survive this trial. Danger
It is a very dangerous world, full of trickery that even life of people would easily be get, with just a blink of an eye of cruel people. In the novel, the feeling of improvisation throughout the firm leads a great sense of spontaneity wherever it occurs, be it fashioning a pulsing danger motif.
Motifs
Good versus Evil
Evil is represented by members of the Bendini, Lambert and Locke. And by the crime family that contracts the firm. However good is represented by Mitch and his wife abbey, his brother Ray and the FBI.
Justice versus Unjustice
The attorney was unjustly killed by the gunmen of Moroltothey are not on the position to kill nor to get one’s life. Another, the Morolto family operates some of the justice system, with their money; they can manipulate justice on their hand.
Truth versus Lie
Unknown to the knowledge of Mitch, the good things that the firm offered to him and to his wife were all come from evil. Those promising things were just a trap for him to get bite and just caught in the middle of trouble.
Symbolisms
The firm- symbolizes a law institution
FBI- symbolizes truth
Harvard School- symbolizes an institution that gives opportunities for students to learn
Gold- plated stripes- symbolizes achievements
Lily white- symbolizes pure, clean and clear