Yay or Nay? Yay! (66%)

 

Consensus: Grisham definitely tries something new, but not everyone thinks it is a success.

Genres: Fiction | Literature & Fiction | Short Stories

Description: In his first collection of short stories John Grisham takes us back to Ford County, Mississippi, the setting of his first novel, “A Time to Kill.”
 
Wheelchair-bound Inez Graney and her two older sons, Leon and Butch, take a bizarre road trip through the Mississippi Delta to visit the youngest Graney brother, Raymond, who’s been locked away on death row for eleven years. It could well be their last visit.
 
Mack Stafford, a hard-drinking and low-grossing run-of-the-mill divorce lawyer gets a miracle phone call with a completely unexpected offer to settle some old, forgotten cases for more money than he has ever seen. Mack is suddenly bored with the law, fed up with his wife and his life, and makes drastic plans to finally escape.
 
Quiet, dull Sidney, a data collector for an insurance company, perfects his blackjack skills in hopes of bringing down the casino empire of Clanton’s most ambitious hustler, Bobby Carl Leach, who, among other crimes, has stolen Sidney’s wife.
 
Three good ol’ boys from rural Ford County begin a journey to the big city of Memphis to give blood to a grievously injured friend. However, they are unable to drive past a beer store as the trip takes longer and longer. The journey comes to an abrupt end when they make a fateful stop at a Memphis strip club.
 
The Quiet Haven Retirement Home is the final stop for the elderly of Clanton. It’s a sad, languid place with little controversy, until Gilbert arrives. Posing as a lowly paid bedpan boy, he is in reality a brilliant stalker with an uncanny ability to sniff out the assets of those “seniors” he professes to love.
 
One of the hazards of litigating against people in a small town is that one day, long after the trial, you will probably come face-to-face with someone you’ve beaten in a lawsuit. Lawyer Stanley Wade bumps into an old adversary, a man with a long memory, and the encounter becomes a violent ordeal.
 
Clanton is rocked with the rumor that the gay son of a prominent family has finally come home, to die. Of AIDS. Fear permeates the town as gossip runs unabated. But in Lowtown, the colored section of Clanton, the young man finds a soul mate in his final days.
 
Featuring a cast of characters you’ll never forget, these stories bring “Ford County” to vivid and colorful life. Often hilarious, frequently moving, and always entertaining, this collection makes it abundantly clear why John Grisham is our most popular storyteller. … [more]

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7 Book Reviews for “Ford County” by John Grisham

• Full of strong characters, simple but resonant plotlines, and charming Southern accents, this collection is solid throughout; though his literary aspirations may seem quaint, Grisham succeeds admirably in his crowd-pleasing craft while avoiding pat endings or oversimplifying…. As always, Grisham balances his lawyerly preoccupations with a deep respect for his undereducated and overlooked characters.
  Published in Publishers Weekly
  
• They’re terrifically charming, if only for this one thing: They start out at a beginning and march straight through to an end. They lack plot twists, literary surprises, authorial showing off. With one exception, they seem as real as real can be.
  Published the 6th day of November, 2009 in The Washington Post | Reviewed by Carolyn See | Full Review
  
• It’s a versatile effort as Grisham shows off his literary chops: He can do wry, emotional, funny, serious. But the effect of reading “Ford County” is a bit like his recent foray into non-fiction. You admire his courage, but these new genres don’t highlight Grisham’s gift, crafting addictive plot-driven novels…. Is this great Grisham? No. He plays best in the long game of novel writing. But admire him for accepting a new challenge.
  Published the 6th day of November, 2009 in USA Today | Reviewed by Deirdre Donahue | Full Review
  
• Grisham’s short stories are a decidedly mixed bag, demonstrating both his strengths (legal chicanery and legal maneuvering) and weaknesses (stock characters and dialogue).
  Published the 28th day of November, 2009 in The Christian Science Monitor | Reviewed by Erik Spanberg | Full Review
  
• There is much dry humor and plain, driving storytelling…. Mostly there are just folks, tumbled along by the course of life, sent spinning by fate to their small destinies.
  Published the 12th day of December, 2009 in The Oregonian | Reviewed by Peggy McMullen | Full Review
  
• Grisham deserves credit for trying to expand his literary range, and short stories are admirably suited to “sense of place” fiction. Unfortunately, even though Grisham works with fertile material and potentially compelling plots, “Ford County” is a failure…. I closed “Ford County” feeling as if I had read an assortment of first or second drafts, not a collection ready for publication.
  Published the 5th day of January, 2010 in The Boston Globe | Reviewed by Kevin O’Kelly | Full Review
  
• These stories, like his longer thrillers, are hugely entertaining. No one who likes Mr. Grisham’s big fiction will be disappointed with these shorter tales.
  Published the 14th day of March, 2010 in Pittsburgh Post-Gazette | Reviewed by Sharon Dilworth | Full Review
  

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 1st, 2010 at 6:14 PM and is filed under:
Fiction, Literature & Fiction, Short Stories.

Tags: book review, Carolyn See, Deirdre Donahue, Erik Spanberg, Ford County, John Grisham, Kevin O’Kelly, literary criticism, Peggy McMullen, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Publishers Weekly, Sharon Dilworth, The Boston Globe, The Christian Science Monitor, The Oregonian, The Washington Post, USA Today

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