Literary Precedents for The Firm

The Firm Literary Precedents

Doubleday's design for the novel's dust jacket, a man in a suit suspended by guide-wires against a marblelike background, recalls the symbol of the hand on the puppet strings used for the book covers and film posters for Mario Puzo's The Godfather (1969). Yet while Puzo crafts an inside narrative of the Mafia, Grisham leaves readers largely on the outside, only seeing the mob members through the tangential figures of DeVasher and others in the firm. The best precedents and comparisons for The Firm are other examples of the thriller genre — such as books by Stuart Woods or Ken Follett or even Tom Clancy — to evaluate how Grisham embraces yet stretches the generic limitations.