A Time to Kill [Paperback]

John Grisham (Author)

Book Description

Release date: March 15, 2004

Before The Firm and  The Pelican Brief made him a superstar,  John Grisham wrote this riveting story of  retribution and justice -- at last it's available in a  Doubleday hardcover edition. In this searing courtroom  drama, best-selling author John Grisham probes the  savage depths of racial violence...as he delivers  a compelling tale of uncertain justice in a small  southern town...Clanton, Mississippi.  

The life of a ten-year-old girl is shattered by two  drunken and remorseless young man. The mostly  white town reacts with shock and horror at the inhuman  crime. Until her black father acquires an assault  rifle -- and takes justice into his own outraged  hands.

For ten days, as burning crosses  and the crack of sniper fire spread through the  streets of Clanton, the nation sits spellbound as  young defense attorney Jake Brigance struggles to save  his client's life...and then his own...

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

This addictive tale of a young lawyer defending a black Vietnam war hero who kills the white druggies who raped his child in tiny Clanton, Mississippi, is John Grisham's first novel, and his favorite of his first six. He polished it for three years and every detail shines like pebbles at the bottom of a swift, sunlit stream. Grisham is a born legal storyteller and his dialogue is pitch perfect.

The plot turns with jeweled precision. Carl Lee Hailey gets an M-16 from the Chicago hoodlum he'd saved at Da Nang, wastes the rapists on the courthouse steps, then turns to attorney Jake Brigance, who needs a conspicuous win to boost his career. Folks want to give Carl Lee a second medal, but how can they ignore premeditated execution? The town is split, revealing its social structure. Blacks note that a white man shooting a black rapist would be acquitted; the KKK starts a new Clanton chapter; the NAACP, the ambitious local reverend, a snobby, Harvard-infested big local firm, and others try to outmaneuver Jake and his brilliant, disbarred drunk of an ex-law partner. Jake hits the books and the bottle himself. Crosses burn, people die, crowds chant "Free Carl Lee!" and "Fry Carl Lee!" in the antiphony of America's classical tragedy. Because he's lived in Oxford, Mississippi, Grisham gets compared to Faulkner, but he's really got the lean style and fierce folk moralism of John Steinbeck. --Tim Appelo --This text refers to the Mass Market Paperback edition.

From Library Journal

In this lively novel, Grisham explores the uneasy relationship of blacks and whites in the rural South. His treatment is balanced and humane, if not particularly profound, slighting neither blacks nor whites. Life becomes complicated in the backwoods town of Clanton, Mississippi, when a black worker is brought to trial for the murder of the two whites who raped and tortured his young daughter. Everyone gets involved, from Klan to NAACP. Grisham's pleasure in relating the byzantine complexities of Clanton politics is contagious, and he tells a good story. There are touches of humor in the dialogue; the characters are salty and down-to-earth. An enjoyable book, which displays a respect for Mississippi ways and for the contrary people who live there. Recommended.
- David Keymer, SUNY Coll. of Technology, Utica
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 528 pages
• Publisher: Dell (March 15, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385338600
• ISBN-13: 978-0385338608
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 1.1 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (469 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #126,496 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

54 of 58 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Its about Time! July 25, 1996

By A Customer

Format:Mass Market Paperback

Finally, A Time to Kill, John Grisham's first novel, is a feature length movie. I just read this book, but I knew it was realeased in 1989. I'm only thirteen, and this was my first Grisham book.
In this story, Grisham hits us with a subject that most might not like to discuss: child rape. Ten-year old Tonya Hailey is brutally raped and almost killed by two drunken rednecks; perhaps the saddest and hardest part to get through with the addition of little Tonya's dream of her father running to get her. After this horrid crime is committed, Tonya's father, Carl Lee exacts vengeance on the two rednecks, and kills them. He is put on trial, and lawyer Jake Brigance is introduced to us. He takes Carl Lee's case and must face his hated enemy, Rufus Buckley, in court. The days leading to the trial are filled with KKK threats, riots between blacks and the KKK, and several other chills and spills. Finally, the trial comes and the small town of Clanton, where the trial is held, is occupated by journalists, soldiers, KKK members, and thousands of blacks, as they all wait for the verdict on the edge of their seats..

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A fast and entertaining read August 17, 2000

By Danaë

Format:Mass Market Paperback

"A Time to Kill" is John Grisham's first novel, but unless you read the foreword, it's not readily apparent. His fluid, detailed storytelling is unlike the choppy first attempts of many modern authors. (At times it may seem he pays *too* much attention to details, but after all, he *is* a lawyer.)

In a small town in the Deep South, two redneck hooligans rape and maim a ten-year-old black girl. Enraged, the girl's father, Carl Lee Hailey, takes justice into his own hands, killing the two rapists in a courthouse shooting. He seeks the help of defense lawyer Jake Brigance to save him from the gas chamber. Brigance, a young but sharp lawyer, has to find a way to win an impossible case: a black man is on trial for killing two white men, and his case is being heard by an all-white jury. Adding to the mix are violence between the Ku Klux Klan and the black community, and the fact that, during the shooting, Carl Lee had injured a sheriff's deputy (who later had to have part of his leg amputated).

Throughout the book, the odds stack against Brigance and his client, and the novel will definitely keep you turning the pages. No matter what your personal opinions on the death penalty or vigilante justice are, you won't be disappointed. As Jake's mentor, disbarred lawyer Lucien Wilbanks, says, "If you win this case, justice will prevail, but if you lose it, justice will also prevail."

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Way Better than Killing Time Watching TV August 7, 2000

By blender

Format:Mass Market Paperback

Jake Brigance is a small-town lawyer with a small-town law practice, taking nickel & dime cases to make ends meet. A young attorney in Clanton, Mississippi, Jake's future as a big-time criminal defense lawyer is incredibly turned down a frightening path in which he encounters the desperate and grim face of racism at its worst. Because of his skill in defending Lester Hailey, Jake is hired to defend Carl Lee Hailey in hopes of obtaining Carl Lee's freedom, despite Carl Lee's admittedly pre-meditated murder of two white men, Billy Ray Cobb and Ernest "Pete" Willard.

The rape of ten year old Tanya, Carl Lee's daughter, by Billy Ray and Pete, has to be one of the most torturous events in fiction that Grisham has written; to even imagine that two men could perpetrate such an act on so young a child is absolutely horrific and incredible. Throughout, Grisham plays strongly on the premise that people who have children know exactly what they would do, were they in Carl Lee's shoes - to avenge the horror of such despicable actions in the only way such men would understand - violent death.

When I first read this novel, I was angered and irritated by the depth of hatred that exists within racism. I was angered that had Carl Lee been a white man bent on avenging his daughter's suffering, he would never have had to face trial. Grisham in fact, points this out several times throughout the novel, and this becomes a rallying point for Carl Lee's supporters. Whereas vigilante justice is not acceptable by any stretch of the imagination, Grisham appeals to the emotions of parents - black or white - and succeeds in winning us over. In fact, this is exactly how the jury decides Carl Lee's fate, rejecting the pressure of the Klan, as well as the black community who thronged the courthouse chanting, "Free Carl Lee!".

A Time to Kill is a disturbing novel, aside from the raping and killing that opens the tale. It is not possible to look at our justice system the same way, especially from the viewpoint of the black community in the South - even today. It seems that although we have come far since the 1960's and Dr. King, Grisham would have us believe that not much has changed for the better.

Peace Out.