The King of Torts door John Grisham

Part A

The book
Title: The King of Torts ISBN: 0-385-50804-2
Publisher: Doubleday
Pages: 384
Year of publication: 2003

The Author
Name: John Grisham Nationality: United States of America
Date of Birth: 8th of February, 1955

John Grisham, the second oldest of five siblings, was born in Jonesboro, Arkansas. In 1977, Grisham received a Bachelor of Science degree in accounting from Mississippi State University. In 1983, Grisham was elected as a Democrat to the Mississippi House of Representatives, where he served until 1990. During his time as a legislator, he continued his private law practice in Southaven. In 1984, at the DeSoto County courthouse in Hernando, Grisham witnessed the harrowing testimony of a 12-year-old rape victim. According to Grisham's official website, Grisham used his spare time to begin work on his first novel, which "explored what would have happened if the girl's father had murdered her assailants. He spent three years on A Time to Kill and finished it in 1987. Initially rejected by many publishers, the manuscript was eventually bought by Wynwood Press, who gave it a modest 5,000-copy printing and published it in June 1989. The day after Grisham completed A Time to Kill, he began work on another novel, the story of a young attorney “lured to an apparently perfect law firm that was not what it appeared.” That second book, The Firm, became the 7th bestselling novel of 1991. Grisham then produced at least one work a year, nearly all of which became very popular bestsellers. He authored seven number-one bestselling novels of the year (1994, 1995, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2002, and 2005).

Motivation
The primary reason why I decided to read this book, is that I am a great fan of thrillers and John Grisham is a very well-known author, famous because of his thriller novels. I have read many of his books, so the decision for this book was a logic one. But this time I had to do it in English, which I thought, shouldn’t be that much of a problem.

I would defenitly recommend this book to another person. It is so well-written and the story is just so good. I really wanted to know what was going to happen next. I couldn’t stop reading. A small problem is that the choice of words by the writer might be a bit difficult, so some people will need a dictionary in order to keep up with the story.


Part B

1. Explain the title of your book
The King of Torts stands for the king of mass claims. The main character in this books starts of as a poor lawyer and develops himself to a mass claim master lawyer, with one of the most successful big law businesses in the US.

2. What is the genre?
This book falls under the category legal thrillers. It is about legal issues that a young lawyer faces. The book features also a lot of tension, what makes it a thriller.

3. Give a short summary
The book is about a young lawyer named Jarrett "Clay" Carter. He’s a hard working man, but stuck in his lousy, bad paid job at the Office of the Public Defender. The parents of his girlfriend Rebecca wants her to pick a man who does earn decent money. Clay hates them and when the father of his grilfriend offers him a well-payed job, he refuses. Rebecca is mad and breaks up with him. Clay’s life gets all upside down when he gets the case of the young Tequila Watson. He’s a drug addict who killed somebody. The strange thing is that Tequila was clean for over 100 days when he committed the murder. When Clay investigates the case he finds several unexplainable things, like the fact that Tequila Watson was clean for over 100 days when he committed the murder. The rapport files that Tequila wasn’t a violent person as well. There were also identical cases where a clean drug addict without a violent past, would suddenly murder someone. At this time a person named Max Pace contacts Clay. He says that Clay will earn a lot of money, when he does what he says. In exchange he has to drop the case of Tequila and Max will tell him everything. Clay agrees and Max tells him that there is a medicine called Tarvan. It miraculously cured drug addicts but in some minor cases it would trigger extreme violent behavior after approximately 100 days. Max advises Clay to make a regulation with the parents of Tequila and Clay’s honorary exceeds the milion dollar mark. After this Clay starts his own big law firm, he starts to seek for more cases. He finds several with the help of Max Pace, who supplies him of secret information about, for example certain side effects of medicins, so he can make large settlements with those companies and it’s clients who want money to make a fortune. He starts a relationship with a rich Gorgian model to make Rebecca jealious. After a while, everything falls apart. A settlement that he arranged for the victims of a medicine called Dyloft appeared to be not adequate enough, because the side-effects of the medicine is way more severe then the settlement could cover. He has to pay now. Also the government comes sniffing around about Max Pace, who appears to have used Clay as a pion in order to trade at the stocks with the knowledge that Clay would sue certain companies. Now multiple claims fail and Clay loses alot of money. His accountant warned him about this but Clay was blinded by his own succes. Clay gets beaten up by a couple of angry ex-employees of a bankrupt company, which was forced to bankruptcy by Clay’s ridiculous demands for a settlement. Clay declares himself bankrupt and leaves the country with his newly retreived girlfriend Rebecca who broke up with her boyfriend to be with Clay again.


4. Mention the Main theme a.o.
Being blinded by the succes and money, so you’ll eventually lose it all is the main theme of this books. Clay is the perfect example of someone who suddenly eanrs a great sum of money. He starts investing in alot of new cases without keeping an eye on the possible consequences. He is warned serveral times for this by his accountant but Clay stayes recless and even buys an airplane. Because Clay doesn’t watch the consequences, he eventually loses it all and ends up right where he started.

5. Describe the development of your main character
Clay starts of as a poor, hard working lawyer, with not much of a future. His girlfriend dumps him and his live seems miserable. At the moment Clay starts to earn alot of money, he becomes ambitious and starts of his own company with his friends from the Office of the Public Defender. But Clay starts to loose grip on reality. He starts to meet Patton Fench, another mass claim lawyer, and Patton teaches him everything about being a succesful mass claim lawyer. Clay does what he was thought and makes even more money despite the risks. Clay falls eventually from his “statue” and is brought with a hard bang back into the real world. He realises that he made wrong decisions and tries to fix everything. He loses most of his money but gets eventually his girlfriend Rebecca back.

6. For what kind of people was this book written for?
This book is for adult people who really like a thriller. You don’t have to be particulary interested in legal issues, because it still grabs you at the troat until the end. So, it’s actually targeted at a very wide range of adults and perhaps some younger people.

7. What is the purpose of this book?
The main purpose of this book is to entertain. It is not a book where global issues are featured or where a terroristic attack is prevented. Another possible purpose of the book is to criticise the mass claim lawyers and the settlements they make. They are probably a big deal in America and the commercials are full of lawyers trying to win clients for there mass claims. And when a settlement is made, the clients earn the least out of it while the lawyers make literal millions.

8.Can you relate to the character described in the novel?
Yes, a little bit with Clay. He’s just an ordinary guy where something unbelievable happends too. It could be every other random lawyer. He acts just in the way I would probably act. I would also be blinded by the wealth and the urge to earn even more. But I would listen to my accountant, what Clay obviously did not.

9. Has this book changed your opinions?
No not really. It didn’t had any opinions about the mass claims culture in the US. But now I think of mass claim lawyers as people who’ll do anything to get you in your claim and eventually give you a small settlement while they make millions themself. It isn’t fair towards the people who really have been damaged by , for example, a medicine and get a lousy sum while their lawyers, who are supposed to “fight” for you, make alot of money.