John Grisham - A Time to Kill

When A Time to Kill was first published in June of 1989, I was brimming with the typical enthusiasm of a rookie novelist whose dreams were not even remotely connected to reality. The warning signs of failure were everywhereunknown writer, unknown publisher, a phantom budget for promotion, and subject matter that appealed to few and ran the risk of alienating many. But I was wonderfully oblivious to all that. Five thousand hardback copies were printed and we couldnt give them away. The book, originally, never made it to the paperback stage. The grand ideas of foreign translations and movie rights and so on were dashed within two months of publication.

My plan at the time, if any struggling writer can realistically claim to have a plan, was to try again with another type of bookthe legal thriller. Hopefully, such a book would find a wider market, thus allowing me to return to Ford County, my own little fictional world where there were, and still are, so many stories to be told. Fortunately, The Firm found an audience, and I was suddenly free to write whatever I wanted.

However, the popularity of The Firm created a desire to succeed at this new career, to strike again while things were hot, to get on top, and to stay there. Such opportunities are rare, and I found myself staring at one head-on, with enough sense to know what I was looking at. I realized that it would be foolish not to stick with legal thrillers for a while. I was going to write again, and quickly, so why not aim for the top of the bestseller lists? A Time to Kill sold less than five thousand copies. The Firm sold a few million. Who couldnt understand this math?

And so the legal thrillers came, one after the other, and then the movies based on the legal thrillers, and a good life became even better. Along the way, my neglected and almost forgotten first novel got itself noticed, and reprinted and marketed properly, and before long it was indeed being read in more languages than I could ever name. A fine movie was made from the story, and it is still being recycled on television even today. At least ninety percent of those readers who get close enough to offer an opinion say something like, I enjoy all your books, but my favorite is A Time to Kill. Its mine too.

Through the yearsand I hate to use those words because they sound too much like an old man looking backI have wanted to return to Ford County, to Clanton, to the colorful lives of a people still dealing with a complicated past. I have visited it occasionally, in The Chamber and The Summons, and almost all of The Last Juror took place there, but I have yet to move back permanently and write the thick, layered, meandering stories that I carry around with me.

And I firmly intend to, one day. Maybe next year.

For now, though, the legal thrillers keep getting in the way. I still enjoy the challenge of piecing together a complex plot and constructing it in such a manner that readers will find themselves compelled to turn the pages as rapidly as possible. I am still fascinated by the law, by those who practice it, those who abuse and manipulate it, those who strive to protect it, those who study and teach it, those who are chosen to interpret it, and especially by those ordinary people who are forced to deal with it, for better or for worse. When you watch these folks as closely as I do, the material seems endless. In short, the legal thrillers are still fulfilling and quite popular. I have no plans to abandon the genre.

Meanwhile, I continue to think about Jake Brigance, and Harry Rex Vonner, and Judge Noose, and I often wonder where Carl Lee is and what happened to his daughter, Tonya. Could these characters possibly produce enough drama for another book? Im not sure, but their neighbors and ancestors certainly can. Ive had dozens of ideas for Ford County novels, almost all of which peter out for one reason or another, but when one fades away, two more pop up and hold my attention for a year or so.

The good stories stick, but theyre not always long enough to become novels. To give them life, and to make sure I dont eventually forget them, I have collected seven of my favorites, seven longer short stories, and Doubleday has agreed to publish them in the fall of this year.

The collection is titled simply Ford County Stories. I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I did writing them.

Thank you, dear readers, for your loyalty.

John Grisham
Oxford, Mississippi
April 1, 2009

B illy Ray Cobb was the younger and smaller of the two rednecks. At twenty-three he was already a three-year veteran of the state penitentiary at Parchman. Possession, with intent to sell. He was a lean, tough little punk who had survived prison by somehow maintaining a ready supply of drugs that he sold and sometimes gave to the blacks and the guards for protection. In the year since his release he had continued to prosper, and his small-time narcotics business had elevated him to the position of one of the more affluent rednecks in Ford County. He was a businessman, with employees, obligations, deals, everything but taxes. Down at the Ford place in Clanton he was known as the last man in recent history to pay cash for a new pickup truck. Sixteen thousand cash, for a custom-built, four-wheel drive, canary yellow, luxury Ford pickup. The fancy chrome wheels and mudgrip racing tires had been received in a business deal. The rebel flag hanging across the rear window had been stolen by Cobb from a drunken fraternity boy at an Ole Miss football game. The pickup was Billy Rays most prized possession. He sat on the tailgate drinking a beer, smoking a joint, watching his friend Willard take his turn with the black girl.

Willard was four years older and a dozen years slower. He was generally a harmless sort who had never been in serious trouble and had never been seriously employed. Maybe an occasional fight with a night in jail, but nothing that would distinguish him. He called himself a pulpwood cutter, but a bad back customarily kept him out of the woods. He had hurt his back working on an offshore rig somewhere in the Gulf, and the oil company paid him a nice settlement, which he lost when his ex-wife cleaned him out. His primary vocation was that of a part-time employee of Billy Ray Cobb, who didnt pay much but was liberal with his dope. For the first time in years Willard could always get his hands on something. And he always needed something. Hed been that way since he hurt his back.