John Grisham facts for kids

Quick facts for kids John Grisham
John Grisham in 2016
Born	John Ray Grisham Jr. (1955-02-08) February 8, 1955 (age 70) Jonesboro, Arkansas, U.S.
Education	Mississippi State University (BS) University of Mississippi (JD)
Period	1989–present
Genres	Legal thriller Mystery Crime fiction Southern Gothic Baseball Football Basketball Young Adult Fiction
Spouse	Renee Grisham ​ (m. 1981)​
Children	2
Member of the Mississippi House of Representatives from the 7th district
In office 1983–1990
Preceded by	Don Chambliss
Succeeded by	Greg Davis
Personal details
Political party	Democratic

John Ray Grisham Jr. (born February 8, 1955) is a famous American writer and lawyer. He is best known for his exciting legal thriller novels. These are stories where lawyers and legal cases are at the center of the action.

John Grisham has written many books that became huge bestsellers. He has had 37 books in a row reach number one on the fiction bestseller lists. His books have sold over 300 million copies around the world! He is one of only three English-speaking authors to sell two million copies of a book in its first printing. The other two are Tom Clancy and J. K. Rowling.

Grisham studied at Mississippi State University and then got his law degree from the University of Mississippi School of Law in 1981. He worked as a criminal lawyer for about ten years. He also served as a politician in the Mississippi House of Representatives from 1983 to 1990.

His first novel, A Time to Kill, was published in 1989. It was later made into a movie in 1996. His first big hit, The Firm, sold over seven million copies. It was also made into a popular movie in 1993, starring Tom Cruise. Many of his other novels have also become movies, including The Client and The Pelican Brief.

Early Life and Education

John Grisham was born in Jonesboro, Arkansas. He was the second of five children. His father worked in construction and farming, and his mother was a homemaker. When John was four, his family moved to Southaven, Mississippi.

As a child, John dreamed of becoming a baseball player. He has been a Christian since he was eight years old. He says becoming a Christian was the most important event in his life. After law school, he even did some missionary work in Brazil.

Even though his parents didn't have much formal education, his mother always encouraged him to read and go to college. He used some of his childhood experiences to write his novel A Painted House.

John started working young. As a teenager, he watered bushes at a nursery. He then worked on a fence crew and later for a plumbing contractor. At 17, he worked on a highway asphalt crew. An incident there, where a fight broke out with gunfire, made him realize he needed to get serious about college. He decided he wanted to be a trial lawyer.

He attended several colleges before getting his degree. He went to Northwest Mississippi Community College and Delta State University. He finally graduated from Mississippi State University in 1977 with a degree in accounting. In 1981, he earned his law degree from the University of Mississippi School of Law.

Career Path

Working as a Lawyer and Politician

John Grisham worked as a lawyer for about ten years. He also decided to get involved in politics. He was elected as a Democrat to the Mississippi House of Representatives. He served there from 1983 to 1990. He wanted to help improve Mississippi's reputation.

During his second term as a politician, he had more free time. This allowed him to spend more time writing his second novel, The Firm. He later realized that if he had been busier with politics, he might not have become a writer.

Grisham's writing career really took off after The Firm became a huge success. He stopped practicing law full-time. However, he did return briefly in 1996 to help a family whose relative was killed in a railroad accident. He won the case for them, which was the biggest win of his law career.

Becoming a Bestselling Author

This house in Lepanto, Arkansas, was used in the movie A Painted House.

Even though he struggled with English in community college, Grisham received praise for his writing in law school. The idea for his first novel, A Time to Kill, came to him in 1984. He heard a young girl tell a jury about a terrible event. Her story deeply affected him. He spent three years writing the book. It was turned down by 28 publishers before a small publisher finally agreed to print 5,000 copies in 1988.

The day after finishing A Time to Kill, he started writing his second novel, The Firm. This book stayed on The New York Times Best Seller list for 47 weeks! It became the seventh bestselling novel of 1991. This started a long streak where one of his books was always among the top 10 bestsellers for nearly two decades.

In 1992 and 1993, The Pelican Brief and The Client were the second-bestselling books of the year. From 1994 to 2000, he had the number one bestselling book every single year!

Many of his books have been made into successful movies. The Firm movie, starring Tom Cruise, made $270 million. The Pelican Brief, starring Julia Roberts and Denzel Washington, made $195 million. Movie studios paid millions of dollars for the rights to turn his books into films.

Grisham also writes other types of stories, not just legal thrillers. He has written about the rural South, sports, and even comedies. In 2004, he wrote and produced the baseball movie Mickey.

In 2010, Grisham started writing a series of legal thrillers for younger readers. These books feature Theodore Boone, a 13-year-old who helps his classmates with legal problems. Grisham hopes these books will entertain kids and teach them a little about the law. His daughter, Shea, who is a teacher, inspired him to write this series.

John Grisham usually takes about six months to write a book. He continues to write new novels every year, many of which become bestsellers.

Southern Settings in His Books

Many of Grisham's legal thrillers are set in the fictional town of Clanton, Mississippi. This town is in the equally fictional Ford County. Some of his books set there include A Time to Kill, The Last Juror, and The Chamber. The short stories in his collection Ford County are also set in this area.

Other Grisham novels are set in real Southern places. For example, The Partner and The Runaway Jury are set in Biloxi, Mississippi. Parts of The Pelican Brief take place in New Orleans. A Painted House is set near Black Oak, Arkansas, where Grisham lived as a child.

Personal Life

Family and Homes

John Grisham married Renee Jones on May 8, 1981. They have two children together.

The family divides their time between homes in Charlottesville, Virginia, and Destin, Florida. They also have a condominium in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Their former home on a farm in Oxford, Mississippi, was given to the University of Mississippi after 2011.

Interests and Beliefs

Grisham loves baseball. He supports Little League activities in both Oxford, Mississippi, and Charlottesville, Virginia. In 1996, he even built a $3.8 million youth baseball complex. His son, Ty, played college baseball for the University of Virginia.

Grisham is a member of the University Baptist Church in Charlottesville, Virginia. He believes in the separation of church and state in America. He and his wife started a foundation that uses his book earnings to help Baptist missionaries in Brazil. This foundation helps buy medicines and build chapels, clinics, and schools.

Helping Others and Activism

John Grisham is on the board of directors for the Innocence Project. This group works to free people who have been wrongly convicted of crimes, especially using DNA evidence. The Innocence Project believes that wrongful convictions happen often because of problems in the justice system. Grisham has spoken to Congress to support their work.

He has also appeared on TV shows to talk about justice issues. He wrote an article for The New York Times in 2013 about a prisoner who was unfairly held at Guantanamo. Grisham is against the death penalty. He believes that too many people are in prison in the United States.

The Mississippi State University Libraries has a special John Grisham Room. It holds materials from his time as a politician and related to his writings. In 2012, the Law Library at the University of Mississippi School of Law was named in his honor.

In 2015, Grisham and about 60 other people signed a letter. It asked for a Confederate flag symbol to be removed from the flag of Mississippi. He worked with author Greg Iles on this letter. Grisham also supported Hillary Clinton in her presidential campaign in 2016.

Awards and Honors

• 1993 Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement
• 2005 Peggy V. Helmerich Distinguished Author Award
• 2007 Galaxy British Lifetime Achievement Award
• 2009 Library of Congress Creative Achievement Award for Fiction
• 2011 The first Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction for The Confession
• 2014 Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction for Sycamore Row

Movies and TV Shows Based on His Books

Television Shows

• The Client (1995–1996)
• A Painted House (2003) television film
• The Street Lawyer (2003) TV pilot
• The Firm (2011–2012)
• The Innocent Man (2018) miniseries

See also

In Spanish: John Grisham para niños

• List of bestselling novels in the United States