John Grisham’s Biography
Do you love sitting down to a good thriller that will keep you right on the edge of your seat until the very end? Of course, you do, and the best part is that when the end comes it is completely different than what you would have imagined. If this sounds like a book that you are currently in then you are most likely reading a John Grisham novel. He has no doubt got several good ones out there. While he is mostly known for producing legal thrillers, he does have a few noted short stories as well. John Grisham books.
The Developing Years
To understand what makes John Grisham so great, you need to understand where the man came from. Grisham was born on February 8th, 1955 to the proud parents of Wanda and John Ray Grisham. They might have been proud of their new boy, but to say he was new would be a bit of an overstatement. John was, in fact, the fifth of a long line of siblings. He was born in Jonesboro Arkansas, but the eventually ended up settling in Southaven when the boy was just four years old.
As a child, John was nothing more than to be a professional baseball player. And, there was a chance that he might have had a career if he didn’t give up the game. He gave it up at the early and tender age of eighteen after being nearly assaulted on the field with a baseball. This might have been the end of his athletic career, but his love and admiration of baseball are two things that carry over strong in his novels.
The Career Outside Of Writing
Being that Grisham is a legal writer, you could have probably guessed that he had some kind of background in law. In fact, this was something that he practiced for about a decade. He even was involved in an election, which he won. In 1984, he was elected to serve as a Democrat to the Mississippi House of Representatives. He served here until 1990, making an annual salary of right around $8,000.
He was assigned to the seventh district of Mississippi, which included DeSoto County, a place that is commonly featured in many of his novels. By his second term, he has already made it at the vice-chairman of the Apportionment and Elections Committee. Not only this, but he was involved with several other committees, so it is not unpractical to assume that he could have had a successful career in this venture as well.
The Blossoming Writing Career
It was one big case that really made Grisham want to pursue writing and everything that it had to offer. It occurred in 1984 when he was hanging around the courthouse. He just happened to hear about an upcoming trial that he immediately became intrigued with. It was about a 12-year-old and how she was raped and beaten. This is when this story developed in his mind, but it wasn’t until the trail that his passion grew.
He saw how the jurors responded to the little girl on the stand telling her story. He loved the raw emotion, and from this point, there was no looking back. Grisham felt that he had to share these same feelings and emotions with his readers. And, it is safe to say that he has done more than that over the years.
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