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John Grisham
THE APPEAL (2008) New York. Bantam Dell. Paperback: 496 pages. ISBN-10: 0385342926 Reviewed by Patrick Killough (1) biblio.com 03/10/2011 Would you recommend this book to other readers? Probably. * * * * review: John Grisham's 2008 novel, THE APPEAL, is good, light bedtime reading. But it is hard to fit into literary pigeonholes. Is is tragic? A gigantic American conglomerate controlled by a superachieving, take-no-prisoners entrepreneur in Manhattan, pollutes the soil and water of a Mississippi town for decades. Cancer rates exceed 12 times the national average. A Jury slaps a huge punitive damage award against the firm. A virtually bankrupt local mom and pop law firm representing the plaintiff needs its share of the award to pay off debts and get a personal life once again. The big man behind the polluting corporation vows never to pay a cent Will he prevail? Not without a plan, the best that money can buy. In this case the plan is to prevent the re-election of a moderate, swing-vote Irish Catholic Mississippi Supreme Court justice (one of nine members) and replace her with a small town WASP Baptist lawyer little league coach with a squeaky clean, unthinking pro-business record. Will he ever realize that he is being used? The rest of the novel is about the complex, cynical campaign to add an ultra-conservative yes-man swing vote to the Mississippi Supreme Court by overpowering the initially unsuspecting candidate up for re-election with money and slick, often dirty campaigning. The issue is at times in doubt and much depends on the moral fiber of the puppet candidate for the court. -OOO- http://www.biblio.com/books/308606969.html =-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-= (2) lunch.com 03/11/2011 name of review: A didactic novel by John Grisham rating: * * * (average or slightly below) review: THE APPEAL, John Grisham's 2008 novel about political, economic and ecological corruption in contemporary Mississippi, is long on preaching and informing and short on credibility and more dimensions than two. Novel's elements include an evil Manhattan multi-billionaire, a little town in Mississippi with 14 times the national cancer rate, a self-sacrificing mom and pop law team suing the company that they think caused the cancer, a plaintiff mother whose husband and son died of cancer, an incumbent Mississippi supreme court justice and a squeaky clean little league coach and lawyer who wants to replace her on the bench. Mix it all together according to a hackneyed formula. It was the evil billionaire's firm which dumped pollutants, poisoned the water and gave small town residents so much cancer. Evil tycoon loses a $41 million suit to the widow plaintiff whose lawyers are mom and pop. The plucky lawyers are facing bankruptcy after four years fighting a case without pay (they are paid only if they win). The evil billionaire is shown by another evil billionaire the way to keep from having to pay a cent of the $41 million: pour a few million into Mississippi and elect a puppet to the State's supreme court and he becomes the pro-business swing vote to toss the $41 milllion award out of court. Professional political election fixers are unleashed and their ploys are narrated in mind-numbing detail. Will well-heeled evil tycoon defeat poor mom and pop and the state's trial lawyers, quirky champions of the little fellow v. corporate greed? Will the evil billionaire be destroyed by the law suit or will he emerge richer than ever? The fact that the issue becomes occasionally in doubt lifts the novel an inch or two above sermonizing or pedantic regaling us with facts about law and elections in Mississippi. But, all in all, THE APPEAL does not appeal. -OOO- http://community.cafelibri.com/reviews/book/UserReview- The_Appeal-74-1130951-203469-A_didactic_novel_by_ John_Grisham.html =-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-= (3) bn.com 03/11/2011 title of review: Give it a ho! Give it a hum! rating: * * * (average or slightly less) review: Read John Grisham's 2008 novel THE APPEAL primarily to while away a couple of hours. When stuck in an airport, let us imagine, or in bed late at night fighting insomnia. You will also garner as a by-product of time invested a few facts about the workings of courts in Mississippi, including trial courts and the elected nine-person Supreme Court in Jackson. You are presented a teary melodrama about innocent little people being kicked around by evil tycoons. You get a slightly different take on the psyches of John Edwards stereotypical trial lawyers: sure they are quirky egomaniacs, but deep inside their combative souls there is a spark of love for the little man and a professional intent (compensated by contingency fees) to right gigantic rascals tooth and nail in court. Once read, soon forgotten. -OOO- recommended reading: -- G. K. Chesterton - THE MAN WHO WAS THURSDAY http://search.barnesandnoble.com/The-Appeal/John-Grisham /e/9780385342926/?itm=3&USRI=john+grisham+-+the+appeal =-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-= =-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-= (4) amazon.com 03/11/2011 title of review: "Clete Coley wasn't a real lawyer." rating: * * * review: * * * "Clete Coley wasn't a real lawyer. ... He didn't hang around the courthouse, and he disliked most of the other lawyers in Natchez. Clete was simply a rogue, a big, loud, hard-drinking rogue of a lawyer who made more money at the casinos than he did at the office. ... He went to law school at night and finally passed the bar exam on his fourth attempt" (Ch. 17) Clete is one of two or three nuggets of gold in the increasingly played out imagination of onetime great courtroom fictioneer John Grisham. The novel is 2008's THE APPEAL. To avoid paying a $41 million award after losing a law suit for poisoning a widowed plaintiff's husband and son, an evil Manhattan multi-billionaire on the way up hires a shadowy firm to elect a squeaky clean Mississippi church deacon and little league coach to the State supreme court and vote there to reverse the lower court's punitive award. If this doesn't work, then hundreds of others similarly injured by toxic dumping in one small Mississippi town (it has 14 times the national cancer rate) will successfully sue the billionaire's firm (since having closed its in-State operations and fired its local employees and thenmoved to eco-unfriendly Mexico). The hired guns select Clete Coley as a stalking horse pseudo- candidate and pay him a mere $150,000 plus expenses to run against a moderate Mississippi Supreme Court incumbent up for an anticipated shoo-in re-election. Clete declares early and mobilizes quite a few thousand fanatics against the incumbent. Meanwhile the brain trust pours real money into boosting the electibility of the little league coach. Will well-heeled evil triumph over impoverished good? Can the out-of-state hired guns and their juggernaut be derailed? Will justice prevail over good? This is 19th Century melodrama dressed up as didactic political fiction. THE APPEAL ranks average or slightly below average in quality, in my opinion. It is only gambler Clete Cooley and his drunken, pointless political shenanigans that move this novel up to 2.2 dimensional character portrayal.-OOO- tags: john grisham, legal fiction, mississippi, political election techniques, carcinogens, contingency fees http://www.amazon.com/Appeal-John-Grisham/dp/ 0385342926/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid= 1299671351&sr=1-1 =-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-= (5) epinions.com 03/11/2011 Title of Review: "Was he photogenic, telegenic, well dressed, handsome enough?" Reviewer's rating of THE APPEAL * * * Pros: Undemanding read: good for when tired. Facts about Mississippi judicial system. Good versus evil Cons: Recalls 19th century stage melodramas. One dimensional caricatures. Formulaic writing. Unconvincing. The Bottom Line: Expect little, then enjoy fighting insomnia reading Grisham's THE APPEAL. One evil multi-billionaire. Two gold-hearted lawyers. One out-of-state political campaign designer. One unsuspecting moderate court justice up for re-election. review: I yearn to be uncharacteristically brief. John Grisham's 2008 novel THE APPEAL does not appeal to me. Owned by Wall Street tycoon Carl Trudeau, Krane Chemical plant once operated in a small town in Mississippi. Krane Chemical illegally dumped toxic waste for years and years. Said waste eventually enters town water supply. Residents develop cancer at a rate 14 times national average. A nearby kindly, self-sacrificing mom and pop legal firm files a State court suit against the company. The company pre-emptively shuts down, fires employees and moves to eco-unfriendly Mexico. After four years the suit results in trial court ruling for plaintiff: $41 million, mainly punitive damages. Manhattan tycoon vows never to pay a cent. Another tycoon puts him on the track to do just that: by electing a tame, squeaky clean church deacon and little league coach to the Mississippi Supreme Court. With unlimited outside funding, an outside poitical fixer will select, package and elect a suitable puppet. Puppet will be the reliable anti-little guy swing vote and the court will kill the award. If this scenario does not develop, the Manhattan plutocrat will surely be successfully sued by hundreds of cancer victims or their survivors. His corporate stock will plummet. He will be the laughing stock of his Fortune Five Hundred peers. Not if plutocrat can help it! I say nothing more of the plot. After about 17 of 39 chapters, all its elements appear to be in place. Action! What about the characters?
For the most part they are awful, usually less than two dimensional, stereotypical. -- Take billionaire Trudeau. He is on his Xth young trophy wife. She, naturally and wisely, has insisted, as had her predecessors, on producing a legitimate heir for said tycoon. "A child was the protection every trophy wife needed" (Ch. 2). Carl Trudeau: 1.9 dimensional. -- I chuckled once or twice watching one of the two candidates cynically selected by the out-of-State election expert. Stalking horse is named Clete Coley, who makes more money gambling in his hometown Natchez than practicing law. A mere $150,000 gets good ole Clete to toss his hat into the race, win votes among hate-mongers and to be prepared at any time to pull out in favor of the anointed puppet if and when told to -- "for the good of the Order," I surmise. Clete Coley: 2.4 dimensional. -- There is nothing to laugh about and a fair amount to pity about the Manhattan tycoon's serious candidate. He begins his role as a moderately decent family man and little league coach of his son's team. Not a bad lawyer, either. No judicial experience. But with millions of dollars in lying negative ads and innuendo against his moderate swing-vote opponent incumbent, Justice Sheila McCarthy, soon to pour into Mississippi, newly anointed lawyer Ron Fisk should be a shoo-in. Lawyer Fisk agrees, reluctantly and with some questions (beginning with "why me?") to run against popular, incumbent Judge McCarthy. Here finally is a sketch of Ron Fisk watched on hidden camera performing during one of his early whisked about on executive jet meetings with financial backers and politicians who have zero personal interest in Fisk the human being. For he had been carefully vetted, then picked and tentatively approved by Barry Rinehart, a "Macher" who was not used to losing campaigns. Watching hidden camera's report of Fisk's 40-minute meeting with previously unknown backers, here is what Trudeau's outside hired gun wanted to know: Rinehart "was anxious to hear his voice, watch his eyes and hands, listen to his anwers. Was he photogenic, telegenic, well dressed, handsome enough? Was his voice reassuring, trustworthy? Did he sound intelligent or dull? Was he nervous in front of such a group, or calm and confident? Could he be packaged and properly marketed?" (Ch. 13). Yes he could be marketed! And soon would be. Author Grisham will even give the poor sap an opportunity or two to slip out of his innocent pact with the devil. Will he or will he not take it? Ron Fisk: 2.6 dimensional. And further deponent (er, reviewer, that is) saith not. -OOO- Recommended: No. http://www0.epinions.com/review/Book_Untitled _16_John_Grisham/content_543731125892 =-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-= =-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-= http://www.patrickkillough.com/books/grisham_appeal.html |