BOok Review on The Runaway Jury PDF

Preview

Summary

Download BOok Review on The Runaway Jury PDF

Description

Systems Plus College Foundation Balibago, Angeles City

A Book Review on: The Runaway Jury by: John Grisham Submitted by: Ralph Angel M. Sarmiento 11 - Gaea

Submitted to: Mr. Jetro G. Dizon Teacher

CONTENT About The Author

Summary of The Book

Insights or Prior Knowledge About the Book

Societal Value of the Book

Tone and Mood

If You Would Be the Author, How Will You End the Book

Recommendation

ABOUT THE AUTHOR John Ray Grisham, Jr. ( born February 8, 1955) is an American bestselling writer, attorney, politician, and activist best known for his popular legal thrillers . His books have been translated into 42 languages and published worldwide. John Grisham graduated from Mississippi State

University before

attending

the University of Mississippi School of Law in 1981. He practiced criminal law for about a decade

and

served

in

the

House

of

Representatives in Mississippi from January 1984 to September 1990. He began writing his first novel, A Time to Kill, in 1984; it was published in June 1989. As of 2012, his books had sold over 275 million copies worldwide. A Galaxy British Book Awards winner, Grisham is one of only three authors to sell 2 million copies on a first printing; the others are Tom Clancy and J.K. Rowling. Grisham's first bestseller was The Firm (1991); it sold more than seven million copies. The book was adapted into a 1993 feature film of the same name, starring Tom Cruise, and a 2012 TV series which "continues the story of attorney Mitchell McDeere and his family 10 years after the events of the film and novel." Eight of his other novels have also been adapted into films: The Chamber,The Client, A Painted House, The Pelican Brief, Skipping Christmas, The Rainmaker, The Runaway Jury, and A Time to Kill. John Grisham, the second oldest of five siblings, was born in Jonesboro, Arkansas, to Wanda Skidmore Grisham and John Grisham. His father worked as a construction worker and a cotton farmer, while his mother was a homemaker. When Grisham was four years old, his family

started traveling around the South, until they finally settled in Southaven, DeSoto County, Mississippi.] As a child, Grisham wanted to be a baseball player. Grisham has been a Christian since he was eight years old, and he describes his conversion to Christianity as "the most important event" in his life. After leaving law school, he participated in some missionary work in Brazil, under the First Baptist Church of Oxford. Despite the fact that Grisham's parents lacked formal education, his mother encouraged her son to read and prepare for college. He drew on his childhood experiences for his novel A Painted House. Grisham started working for a nursery as a teenager, watering bushes for US$1.00 an hour. He was soon promoted to a fence crew for US$1.50 an hour. He wrote about the job: "there was no future in it". At 16, Grisham took a job with a plumbing contractor but says he "never drew inspiration from that miserable work". Through a contact of his father's, he managed to find work on a highway asphalt crew in Mississippi at age 17. It was during this time that an unfortunate incident got him "serious" about college. A fight had broken out among the crew on a Friday, with gunfire from which Grisham ran to the restroom to escape. He did not come out until after the police had "hauled away rednecks". He hitchhiked home and started thinking about college. His next work was in retail, as a salesclerk in a department store men's underwear section, which he described as "humiliating". He decided to quit but stayed when he was offered a raise. He was given another raise after asking to be transferred to toys and then to appliances. A confrontation with a company spy posing as a customer convinced him to leave the store. By this time, Grisham was halfway through college. Planning to become a tax lawyer, he was soon overcome by "the complexity and lunacy" of it. He decided to return to his hometown as a trial lawyer. He went to the Northwest Mississippi Community College in Senatobia, Mississippi and later attended Delta State University in Cleveland. Grisham drifted so much that he changed colleges three times before completing a degree. He graduated from Mississippi State University in 1977, receiving a BS degree in accounting. He later enrolled in the University of Mississippi School of Law to become a tax lawyer, but his interest shifted to general civil litigation. He graduated in 1981 with a JD degree.

SUMMARY OF THE BOOK The Runaway Jury is a novel about the case of Celeste Wood, the widow of Jacob Wood, who has died from lung cancer after years of smoking three packs of Bristol’s a day, versus Pynex, one of the Big Four tobacco companies in the United States. Although the case has been filed four years ago, the story started just weeks before jury selection, when both sides are frantically trying to discover as much about the potential jurors as they possibly can. The tobacco companies have already won many of these cases before, mainly due to a secret account called The Fund. The Fund holds millions of dollars to be spent defending these lawsuits. A man named Rankin Fitch controls The Fund and stops at nothing to get the result that he wants. In contrast to the other cases, the lawyer for the plaintiff, Wendall Rohr, is also well funded and assisted by seven other lawyers. The jury is selected, and the trial begins in Judge Harkin's court. One day in court, a woman named Marlee hands one of the deputies a note to pass on to Fitch. The note contains information about what the eleventh juror, Nicholas Easter, will be wearing the next day. After following Easter the next day, Fitch discovers that she is right. After a couple of days, Marlee contacts Fitch, again correctly predicting the jury's movements, which begin to get stranger and stranger. She continues to have contact with Fitch, and as time goes on, he learns that she has someone, Easter, on the inside, and Fitch realizes that Easter can control not only the jury's movements, but also the individual jurors' status. Despite appearing to have Marlee on his side, Fitch also buys some insurance by way of bribery and pressure on several of the jurors. As the trial winds to a close, Marlee makes a deal with Fitch - 10 million dollars for the verdict. She and Easter have proved to this point that they are able to manipulate the people on the jury, even making decisions as to who is actually on it, so Fitch has no reason to doubt her. They make a deal. However, Fitch has not been able to find any concrete information on Marlee's background, despite his constant digging. Finally, some information surfaces - Marlee's parents both died of lung cancer. Fitch receives this information too late. The jury returns with a decision for the plaintiff to the tune of four hundred two million dollars, a landmark verdict that opens the tobacco companies up for what could be thousands of

other lawsuits. Flush with their ten million, Nicholas and Marlee meet up in the Cayman Islands, where Marlee uses the money to buy and trade tobacco shares, taking advantage of the blow that has just hit the industry. She makes an additional eight million dollars, and in a surprise meeting with Fitch, gives the ten million back. For them, the verdict was all that they were looking for.

INSIGHTS OR PRIOR KNOWLEDGE ABOUT THE BOOK Reading novels and books are not my hobby. So when our teacher said that one of our requirements will be a book review, I asked a friend to suggest a book that I can use to do the said project. He suggested me books of John Grisham which are part of his collection such as “The Firm”, “The Partner”, “The Pelican Grief”, and the book which I chose - “The Runaway Jury”. I was caught by the title of the book and it has captured my interest. To be completely honest, I got a little bit bored with how the story goes since reading is not my hobby. Nevertheless, I have to read and have knowledge about the book since it is a requirement. I seek the help of my friend to help me understand the book. Since the novel has a movie, doing the book review had become easier for me. However, we have seen differences between the movie and the book. As I have observed, the main difference between the movie and the book is that the main conflict in the book is the tobacco producers while in the movie it turned out that the main problem are guns. There are certain scenes that are different. In addition, the novel was very detailed when it comes to the description of the settings and the characters. As the days passed by, I became interested to reading the book and to completely understand it until I was able to finish it. And I have realized that the books and movie has a lot of differences except for the concept that the jury was controlled by Nicholas.

Moving forward, I also realized that the author’s background has a great influence with the novel they write. Like in this case, John Grisham is a tax-lawyer that’s why he writes novels that have connection with different cases. In this book, the conflict deals with a case regarding tobacco producers. I am looking forward to seeing more of Grisham’s novels and know how they differ from each other.

SOCIETAL VALUE OF THE BOOK The conflict in the story deals with the tobacco producer as well as the justice system wherein the jurors are being controlled by a certain company or group of people. Connecting it with the present time we have, I can say that the book has a relevance with true-to-life issues in the society. It can be the author’s purpose to make the book an eye-opener to the society to wake up and be aware of what is happening in the system whether it be in the government or the justice system. Moreover, honesty and equality are being seen in the story. The lesson of the story clearly reflects on how we should protect and value justice – that justice is not only served for those who has money nor influence but it should be based on truth and fact.

TONE AND MOOD In order to have a better understanding with the story, the tone and mood are essentials in order to know and understand what the author conveys in the story. Based on how I interpreted the story and how the story was narrated by the author I can say that there are two moods that was shown in the novel. First is the casual tone. The plot was narrated in a very detailed way as if the author was very calm and educated. Though there are

parts that are very exciting, we can still see the classy taste of the author on how he chose words and how they were organized. Another tone I have observed is the ambiguous tone of the author. On this story, I have seen how important reading between the lines is. Some of the passages are not to be taken literally because sometimes they have double-meaning which can affect your understanding of the story. When it regards to the mood of the story, the story has started with an cynical mood. It is as if justice is really hard to gain. On the latter of the story, its mood shifted into having an optimistic mood- that they are looking forward into having a positive outlook that justice will be served.

IF YOU WOULD BE THE AUTHOR, HOW WILL YOU END THE BOOK The Runaway Jury has ended with a rightful verdict. If I were the author, I will still end the story the way it is. I will end it in a way that justice was served and the victims were given their rights. I want people to realize that no matter how powerful the enemy is, justice and truth will prevail. I would love to imply to people that justice is priceless and no matter how hard you try to break it, it will always end up rightfully and truthfully. Moreover, I want the people to trust the justice system and the officials that are in authority. To sum it up, the author has given the best conclusion or ending in the story and I can no longer think of a better conclusion than what he has written.

RECOMMENDATION John Grisham’s book are not just fictional but they are educational as well. If I were to recommend a thing, I would suggest him to have a simpler way of writing of his plot considering that there are people who barely understand the story because of the complicated way of his writing as well as his different law jargons. Nonetheless, the story was great and unpredictable which made the novel very interesting that puzzled me and keep me hooked up in the story to keep me reading it from cover to cover....