"He sells to everyone," Jones continued, "from teens to senior citizens, from lawyers in Biloxi to housewives in Hong Kong."
When Grisham began writing his first novel, he never dreamed that he would become one of America's best-selling novelists. Yet the appeal of his legal thrillers such as The Firm, The Pelican Brief, The Client, The Rainmaker, and The Summons, among others, has been so great that initial hardcover print runs of his novels number in the hundreds of thousands and the reading public regularly buys millions of copies of his books. The one-time lawyer now enjoys a celebrity status that few writers will ever know. "We think of ourselves as regular people, I swear we do," Grisham was quoted as saying of himself and his family by Keli Pryor in Entertainment Weekly. "But then someone will drive 200 miles and show up on my front porch with books for me to sign. Or an old friend will stop by and want to drink coffee for an hour. It drives me crazy." As he told Jones, "I'm a famous writer in a country where nobody reads."
Hardscrabble Youth
As a youth, Grisham had no dreams of becoming a writer, although he did like to read.
