John Grisham
November 7th 2006 05:36
Everybody knows John Grisham. He's pretty much the man who invented the modern court-room drama in literary form. Around half of his books have been turned into films and almost every one of his books is a bestseller, and he releases a new one every year! It seems the more specialised a writer becomes, the more likely he or she is to be a bestseller... more and more I'm starting to think that people are attracted to formulaic storytelling - they want something they can understand straight away. Is this a knock-on effect from our gradually shortening media-fed attention spans?
It seems the masses are most impressed with something they can understand immediately. Nobody really wants anything challenging, when joe blow and mrs. jones read a book they want something that makes them feel smart, so they jump on the easiest bandwagon. I guess this is how ultra-formulaic writers like John Grisham make their mint. Sorry if that sounds arrogant, but I doubt anyone could really argue that John Grisham is high-brow or that he isn't a bestseller.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
A Time to Kill (1989)
The Firm (1991)
The Pelican Brief (1992)
The Client (1993)
The Chamber (1994)
The Rainmaker (1995)
The Runaway Jury (1996)
The Partner (1997)
The Street Lawyer (1998)
The Testament (1999)
The Brethren (2000)
A Painted House (2001)
Skipping Christmas (2001)
The WaveDancer Benefit (2002) (with Pat Conroy, Stephen King and Peter Straub)
Bleachers (2003)
King of Torts (2003)
The Last Juror (2004)
The Broker (2005)
The Innocent Man: A True Story (2006)
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