Contemporary / American English The horror of death row is that you die a little each day. The waiting kills you. Seventy-year-old Sam Cayhall is on Mississippi's death row. Sam hates lawyers but his date with the gas chamber is close, and time is running out. Then Adam Hall, a young lawyer arrives. Can he and his secret persuade Sam to accept his help?
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Editorial Reviews
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"Totally hypnotic . . . scenes unfold and unfold and you can't stop reading.""--The Washington Post"
"A dark and thoughtful tale pulsing with moral uncertainties . . . Grisham is at his best."--"People"
""The Chamber" does grab hold and it doesn't let go."--"The Boston Globe"
"Compelling . . . powerful."--"USA Today"
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Well written but needed a better ending,
By Reads Thrillers (Dallas, Texas) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Chamber (Penguin Longman Reader Level6) (Paperback)
This is a story about deep, dark secrets that a family has hidden from each other and the world. A subject that is controversial and one that everyone has an opinion about, the death sentence. It is a character study of a man from when he joined the KKK, as a teenager, until his final days on death row. This seventy-year-old grandfather, after three trials in Mississippi spanning more than twelve years and another twelve years of appeals, doubts if Adam Hall a twenty-six-year-old attorney can save him from his last breath being cyanide gas. During his first interview with Adam, he recognized a voice that sounded like his son that committed suicide and indeed it was his grandson that he had never met.
Two of my favorite movies are The Firm and The Pelican Brief, both based on books by Mr. Grisham. I place The Pelican Brief in my top ten movies ever. This novel is NOT a thriller. It does not have a lot of action or plot twists, but it is well written and certainly kept my interest. I would have given it more stars but I did not like the ending. I was let down when I turned the last page as I was keyed up for a ........ Not only was the ending a total surprise to me but several items did not have closure. Author al-Qaeda Strikes Again
1.0 out of 5 stars
I am extremely negative about John Grisham reading,
This review is from: The Chamber (Penguin Longman Reader Level6) (Paperback)
Review of the "Chamber" by Penguin Readers.
I am sorry to say, that the so called "artistic" reading of the text by unknown reader gives me the great disappointment. I am a student in Canada and studying English. I bought a few books with CD-s in order to use them to repeat after the reader, and realised that Penguin Readers doesn't understand the goals of the means to study English pronunciation this way. There is no room to use changed voice in this case, like for kids listening the fairy tales. What I actually need and why I paid for the books, is: to HEAR THE NATURAL VOICE of the NATIVE SPEACKER and imitate him. How can I hear the natural voice and how can I repeat maximum close, if I cannot catch the articulation; moreover, this kind of articulation is something different than I need to learn?! Why should I learn the distorted voice?? Whose unprofessional ignorance allowed to produce the books FOR READING(!!!) with the reader acting apes instead of careful passing the art of articulating English sounds and words, as it is in all the other textbooks of this kind?? I remember there were some books of Penguin Readers with CD-s with the real and proper reading; I just enjoyed working with them. I greatly improved at that time, thanks to the professionals of Penguin Readers of THAT TIME that made their books so nice and qualitative. But this aping voice of this reader... this is just the insane failure for this kind of books: I would not recommend anybody to buy them unless Penguin Readers returns to the professional ENGLEASH TEACHER scoring, as it was before, and let their actual reader go (somewhere else: maybe, to score cartoons, if not swip the streets). I don't see any other way for Penguin Readers to make the quality books in a future: if guy does not understand where he is and what he is doing... why should I pay for his unprofessionalism?? Save your money, don't buy the book: the reader is terrible.
4.0 out of 5 stars
The Chamber is John Grisham's best-selling book - ever.,
By
This review is from: The Chamber (Penguin Longman Reader Level6) (Paperback)
I was a John Grisham fan. My personal favorite is his first book, A Time to Kill, later adapted into a successful film.
The Chamber is John Grisham's best-selling book - ever. From beginning to end, it is an engrossing read. The reader flies through the 600+ pages, as Grisham paints a picture of a family wrecked by the sinful racism of the father. The Chamber tells about a fictional character named Sam Cayhall, condemned to the gas chamber because of a crime he committed in the late 1960's against a Jewish lawyer. Cayhall was an accomplice in setting a bomb that destroyed the lawyer's office and unintentionally killed the lawyer's two twin boys. With just a month before his execution date, Cayhall's grandson, a fresh, young lawyer named Adam Hall, arrives on the scene to save the day. The Chamber forces the reader to wrestle with the idea of the death penalty. The crimes are described in horrific detail, and we later discover that Cayhall was guilty of even more egregious sins than the one for which the government wants to execute him. If you skip the book and decide to rent the movie, be aware. The movie isn't half as good as the book. (I know everyone always says this, but trust me on this one.) This is, in my opinion Grisham's last work worth reading. I gradually tired of Grisham's writing. His approach has become overly familiar and formulaic. Many of his books read as if the author was planning for an immediate movie adaptation of the current novel (the Stephen King Movie of the Week syndrome) while he was writing. As a consequence, I simply stopped reading his subsequent books. Grisham can produce page turning prose with the best of them, but after awhile the repetition became monotonous for me. After reading six of his books, I stopped cold. It was not so much a case that Grisham was not entertaining, he was, but as a reader I had the sense of having been there and done that. Some gifted authors have a talent for writing books that always seem to be fresh and new, even when employing the same set of characters, while others seem to fall into a predictable, if profitable rut. Someday, I may check out another Grisham book to see if I was incorrect in my original assessment.""
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