Back Right to pardon, the American writer again pushes us into extreme judicial tension. An ex-lawyer plunges us into the heart of a 1990 Mississippi teenager’s trial.
In his latest novelRight to pardon, John Grisham returns to his roots. The man with three hundred million books sold worldwide is represented by lawyer Jack Brigance, the protagonist of his first novel, The right to kill (1989) as well as excellent Sycamore Alley (2013). Back then, in the small town of Clanton, Mississippi, our favorite hero is once again in charge of a controversial case that could cost him dearly professionally, financially and personally. He really has to protect the 16-year-old teenager Drew Gamble, who is facing the death penalty for killing his mother’s boyfriend, who beat him like a plaster cast at night, but enjoyed the face of a brave police officer during the day. by his peers… The author There Hard (1991) offers us a legal thriller that, as usual, displays its cinematic sense of intrigue, rhythm and twist, while bringing the reader face to face with its contradictions.
In the video, I will always see your faces By Jeanne Heri, with Leila Bekhti, Adele Exarchopoulos, Elodie Bouches, trailer
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Madame Figaro . – What made you come back to Jack Brigans?
John Grisham. – I understand that the character is very popular, especially with the success of the movie THE: right to killwhere he’s played by Matthew McConaughey, and I told myself I didn’t want to wait another twenty-four years like I did for my first novel and Sycamore Alley – before discovering a new part of his adventure. I am attached to him because he is my most autobiographical hero. When I started writing right to kill I, too, was a young lawyer practicing in a small Mississippi town, struggling to make ends meet and dreaming of a big deal… Besides, Jack’s world is mine, I wasn’t, these books don’t need to explore the culture. , music, food, politics, religion, geography because that’s where I’m from. I was very happy writing these books, I felt at home there.
I was very happy while writing these books, I felt at home there.
John Grisham
Why did you decide to set the action in 1990 and not today?
For two reasons. First, because I was still a lawyer at the time and I remembered what it was: fun and stimulating. This was before the internet and cell phones, before new technologies consumed us. And then the laws were not the same. It was not unusual for a 13- or 14-year-old child to be prosecuted for murder in order to be sentenced to death. Today, the United States Supreme Court, thankfully, decided otherwise…
Were you inspired by a true story?
Partially. In the past, which happened about thirty years ago, there was also a teenager whose mother had a boyfriend who beat her. One night, the latter punched him in a fit of rage before collapsing, dead drunk, on the bed. The child brought the gun closer and shot him in the head. The person who told me this story was his lawyer. The little boy was so traumatized between what happened to his mother and what he did to himself that he couldn’t talk for weeks, including to a lawyer… I took these elements. Like all writers, I steal characters, plots, dialogue, and moods from everything around me.
Do you build all your books from ground reality?
Frequently. in the case of Sycamore AlleyFor example, the story of two brothers who as children witness the killing of a black man by whites, including their father, and the resulting trauma is real. Whenever a story strikes me, I put it down on paper and take pages and pages of notes, and by the way, it doesn’t always lead to a novel. So, a few weeks ago, two men left Guantánamo, after twenty years of imprisonment and torture without being formally charged with anything. And we released them without any compensation. It’s an incredible deal, and I’ve been making notes on this subject for over fifteen years, but so far it hasn’t worked out, and probably never will…
Like all writers, I steal characters, plots, dialogue, and moods from everything around me.
John Grisham
Did you want to leave the readers of your latest novel in a dilemma?
It works. Fiction allows us to explore all kinds of areas of injustice: the flaws of the legal system, miscarriages of justice, the unjustly accused, the death penalty…. and at the same time be pushed to the limit. I want him to ask himself and think about what he would do in the place of the jury or, sometimes, the murderer.
This is indeed the case The right to pardon because it already was The right to kill…
And that’s a question I’ve asked myself. When I was a very young lawyer, I haunted the courtroom and participated in all the proceedings, carefully watching the judges, lawyers, victims, defendants… One day I saw a 12-year-old girl come. lectern molested by a repeat offender. She told what he had done to her, and it was so horrible to hear that everyone in the room cried, including the judge. The little boy finally cried and the judge stopped the hearing. I literally ran away, ran up the stairs, pushed open the door, got to my car. And there I realized that I forgot my bag. I had to go back to the court, up the stairs, back to the room. It was empty except for the accused who was sitting there under police guard. I thought at that moment that if my daughter had been the victim, I would probably have shot this man in cold blood. This is how the father’s revenge story was born THE: The right to kill.
Fiction allows us to reveal all kinds of areas of injustice
John Grisham
Will Jack Brigance be back with another novel?
One last time, because I have another business idea that he could take care of… even if my wife wasn’t nice enough for me to make her the hero of this new novel. ! For if five years have passed in Jack’s life The right to kill And The right to pardon in fact, more than thirty years separate these two books. So I wrote about a man in his thirties when I was in my sixties, and I had his age and situation in my first novel. Follow my steps in his footsteps, rediscover who he was, how he spoke and thought, it was not so easy. But it remained a great pleasure, I had the impression of reviving my youth and recharging my creative batteries.
Will the book be adapted for film, how? The right to kill and many of your novels The firm To: The case of the pelican.
To tell the truth, Matthew McConaughey would like to play Jack Brigance on the screen one more time. It won’t be a movie, but a six-part miniseries for HBO. However, if we all agree, no contract is done yet, and it’s been in place for over a year… That’s one of the reasons I never write a script. When it comes to the book, I can pretty much control the process, I know when to hand it in, roughly when it’s going to come out, and I control how it’s made. This obviously does not apply to adaptation. Therefore, I will probably never work on a screenplay derived from a script right of pardon, especially since I’m currently planning the sequel to my next novel There Hardwhich, in contrast Right to pardon – three-quarters of whose pages describe Drew’s trial, never leaving Clanton or its environs, taking place in New York, Rome and London…
Source: Le Figaro
