The testament door John Grisham

The Testament

The author

The testament is written by John Grisham. He was born on 8 February 1955 in Jonesboro, Arkansas. Since his mother encouraged him to read, his love of books began. After graduating a study tax law and criminal law he started his own law firm. In 1984 he started with full-time writing as his job. He wrote many best-sellers like: The Pelican Brief, The Client, The Rainmaker etc. The most of his books are going about something with lawyers.

The characters

The main characters in this book are:

• Nate O’Riley, because in the book he is making a long trip to find the daughter of Troy Phelan.
• Troy Phelan is also a main character. Not the whole book goes about him but indirectly it goes about him because he leaves a will what says that Rachel gets the money.
• Rachel Lane. The testament says that she gets the eleven billion dollars from Troy Phelan and Nate has to find her in the Pantanal.

The Summary

Troy Phelan is an old, rich, but lonely man. He has eleven billion dollar. He has three ex-wives and six children, but they care only about the money and not about him. So he decide to take his own life, but before he commit the suicide he changed at the last moment his will. Then he let himself fall of the balcony. All the family expect that they are going to get the money. The lawyer of Troy Phelan, Josh Stafford, sees the testament and he want to do what it says. It says that Troy wants to be cremated and that there will be no funeral. His ex-wives get nothing and his six children a little bit for the debts they have now. The residue goes to Rachel Lane. She’s an unknown illegitimate daughter but she was the only one who doesn’t want the money. The other children like T.J. are buying things or telling everybody about the money which they think they are getting. The lawyers want to tell Rachel that she can get eleven billion dollars but she works for World Tribes Missions in the Pantanal. So nobody knows where she really is. Josh, the lawyer, decide to sent Nate O’ Riley to her. He’s a lawyer and just got out of a rehabilitation centre for alcohol. He also divorced a few times. He flies to Corumbá and there he met his travel buddy Jevy and first they go with an airplane to fly over the Pantanal.  But then it’s going to rain and to storm and the wind hits the plane. The plane fells on the airstrip but the pilot doesn’t see the cow and then al the windows of the plane burst open. They have a satellite phone and call the army base of Carumbá and they pick them up. The next morning they would go into the swamp with a boat but the evening before Nate can not resist the vodka. The next day Jevy find him more dead than alive. Back by the other children of Phelan, they hear that they don’t get all money. They are very angry and the lawyers want to change the will. Nate travels along the narrow rivers and after a long trip he finally locate her, but there is one problem. She didn’t want the money. Nate don’t gives up because he don’t want that the other children gets the money. Rachel Porter (that’s her real name) tells him about God and her believe in Christ. After all he goes back with a special place for her in his heart.  When he goes back to Corumbá he gets dengue fever. After his recovering he searches Rachel, because he thought that he saw her in the hospital, but it was a dream. He wants to make the things right with his ex-wives and children to be a good person, But the visit by two of his children don’t get as well. The family of Phelan says that they want per person 5 million dollar. In Washington he becomes also friends with a parson, but when he hears of the 5 million dollar he goes back to Rachel to let her sign the will. When he comes by the tribe again, Rachel and many people are died of malaria. In her hut he finds her testament what says: ‘I want that all the money from Troy Phelan goes in a trust for the World Tribe Missions around the world.’

My opinion:

The story of the book was very interesting, because I like stories about lawyers. The book wasn’t very difficult. There were a few words per chapter that I don’t now but you can always know it by the context. Now I have read a penguin version, but maybe I’m going to read the real version in the future. I like to see that I don’t have to translate it word by word, but I understand it mostly automatic.