Book Review

BOOK REVIEW: Sparring Partners

by John Grisham

Review By Jules Mermelstein, Esq., author of Justice, Justice Shall You Pursue

John Grisham decided he wanted to try something new instead of full-length novels. He tried short stories, but did not like that. So he has tried his hand at writing novellas, which are short novels.

In Sparring Partners, Grisham combined three novellas, the first dealing with his most famous character, Jake Brigance of A Time to Kill fame, into this book. I will review each novella.

Homecoming

In this first novella, Jake is put in the position of being a friend of an attorney who disappeared from his town three years earlier right after his divorce and amongst rumors that he stole money before disappearing. Harry Rex, one of Jake’s friends, is the absconder’s attorney.

It seems Mack Stafford, the absconder, would like to return and renew a relationship with his two teenaged daughters now that he found out his ex-wife is dying of cancer. I found the characters and the situation believable and began rooting for a good outcome for all. My only criticism of it is that it ends without an ending, but just by a prediction of what will occur in the next few years.

There is a great general description about practicing law in a small jurisdiction:

The upside of a small-town law practice, especially in your hometown, was that everyone knew your name, and that was what you wanted. It was important to be well thought of and well-liked, with a good reputation. When your neighbors got in trouble, you wanted to be the man they called. The downside was that their cases were always mundane and rarely profitable. But, you couldn’t say no. The gossip was fierce and unrelenting, and a lawyer who turned his back on his friends would not last long.

Strawberry Moon

This middle novella is the shortest of the three, about half as long as each of the other two. It is a character study of a man sentenced to death for a crime he committed when he was fourteen years old. Amongst conversations he has with himself, with a friendly guard, with the warden, with the chaplain, with his lawyer, and with the only visitor he had in the fourteen years he’s been on death row, we get a clear understanding of each character as well as our justice system.

Sparring Partners

It is this last novella that gives the book its title. This novella is about a family law firm with serious ethical as well as personal relationship issues.

It opens with the founder of the law firm, Bolton Malloy, already in jail after pleading guilty to the manslaughter of his wife, the mother of the other two partners, Rusty and Kirk Malloy. Rusty is a plaintiff trial attorney while his brother handles legal matters that do not involve going to court. The brothers cannot stand each other and try to not talk to each other. They and their different staffs occupy physically separate parts of the firm. Diantha Bradshaw is an attorney in the firm who, without any ownership interest or the actual title, operates as the managing partner of the firm. Her office is physically between the two brothers’ sections. Whenever either brother needs to know what’s going on in the other part, they come to see Diantha.

Without going into details that would spoil the plot, I will just say that this novella would be an interesting study for a legal ethics class or CLE.

I enjoyed Grisham’s journey into writing novellas, and I believe you will as well.