Summary:
Review of the John Grisham's The Brethren. Highlights the things thatgo on behind the scenes of a presidential election, in the C.I.A, and in the government in general, that the public has no idea about. Also examines how easily you can become a victim of a scam when you share personal information.
John Grisham has the reputation of being the master of the legal thriller. He was born on February 8, 1955 in Jonesboro, Arkansas. His father was a construction worker and his mother was a homemaker. As a child he dreamed of being a professional baseball player. He attended Mississippi State University and graduated from law school in 1981. He practiced law for nearly ten years in Southaven, Mississippi. He specialized in criminal defense and personal injury cases. In 1983, he was elected to the state House of Representatives and served until 1990.
One day at the courthouse, he overheard the testimony of a twelve year old rape victim. This inspired him to start a novel. It took him three years to write it, in between his job as a lawyer. He finally finished A time to Kill in 1987. The day after he finished his first book he began working on another novel, which would turn his hobby into a new full time career. When he sold the film rights to The Firm to Paramount Pictures for $600,000.00, Grisham suddenly became a hot property among publishers. The Firm spent 47 weeks on The New York Times bestseller list and became the best selling novel of 1991. The Pelican Brief and The Client were number one on The New York Times bestseller list as well. Since 1988, Grisham has written one novel a year, and all have
become bestsellers. Some of his other novels are The Chamber, The Rainmaker, The Runaway Jury, The Partner, The Testament, A Painted House, The Summons and The King of Torts. Publishers Weekly declared him "the bestselling novelist of the 90's."
There are over 60 million John Grisham books in print worldwide and have been translated into 29 languages. Seven of his novels have been made into movies (The Firm, The Pelican Brief, The Client, A Time to Kill, The Rainmaker, The Chamber and A Painted House).
The Brethren is another novel written by John Grisham. The word "Brethren" is defined in the dictionary as "members of the same society or profession." This describes three of the main characters in the story perfectly.
The story's main locations are Washington, DC and a Federal minimum security prison in Florida called Trumble. It is basically a camp for relatively harmless criminals. Three of the main characters are former judges named Finn Yarber, Hatlee Beach and Joe Roy Spicer. They call themselves The Brethren.
The worst part of reading the book is the beginning. It starts off a little boring and hard to follow while the author describes the different characters. You start to wonder how everything can be related to each other. The best part of the novel is toward the end when everything starts to come together and starts to make sense. The ending of the novel is good. It doesn't leave you hanging with a lot of questions.
The story starts with the three judges, the Brethren; one of them is from Texas,
one from California and one from Mississippi. They meet each day in the law library of the prison. They write briefs, handle cases for other inmates and settle disputes between inmates by holding court. They are also running blackmail scams.
The judges place ads in gay magazines looking for a pen pal. After exchanging letters back and forth with these men, the judges would be able to put together information about their victim's real identities with the help of their lawyer who helps them collect the mail from the post office boxes and smuggles it into them, he also does other things, for a share of the money. The Brethren would then blackmail their rich victims demanding money from them, or they would expose their victim's secret about being gay to their family and the public. The judges were making a lot of money until they picked the wrong victim named Aaron Lake, a congressman, and a shoe in who is running for President of the United States, who has been hand picked by the C.I.A. and other government officials to become the next President.
I think the meaning of this book is that there are a lot of things that can go on behind the scenes of a presidential election, in the C.I.A, and in the government in general, that the public has no idea about. I think it also shows how easily you can become a victim of a scam when you tell someone personal information about yourself,
even though you think you can trust the person you are writing to or are positive that you
are not telling the other person too much.
I liked reading this book. It had a lot of surprising events in it. It makes you wonder if some of the things that the C.I.A. does in the book really happens in real life. John Grisham is a very good writer. I would recommend reading this book.
This is the complete article, containing 817 words
(approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page).
