Ford County Stories by John Grisham

Paperback 2009, 340 pages.
Clearwater, Florida

I bought the book on Monday at SFO because I ran out of things to do on the return trip from Sydney. I hesitated a bit because the previous non-lawyer books by Grisham that I read were quite disappointing. I finally bought it because (i) it was relatively cheap at $7.99, (ii) it was either listed as the #1 or #2 bestseller, and (iii) maybe it will be different this time.

Anyway, the book consists of 7 short stories (about 50 pages each) talking about life in and around Clanton, the county seat of Ford County. After reading a couple of the stories I began to regret why I bought the book. First, most – if not all – of the stories seem to reinforce an outsider’s view of that part of the country as being backward, and that people there are particularly mean. I thought Grisham is from that area, and that he would be more sympathetic to people in that area. Second, the stories while somewhat interesting, aren’t developed well at all. Perhaps there is not much to develop? Third, you get the feeling that these were all Grisham’s writing experiments during his fledgling days as an author, and now that he is famous, he wants to see his work in print. That these were his older works is further confirmed by the gas chamber execution and the AIDS death.

In the end, I am left with a similar feeling of disappointment as I did when I finished “Playing for Pizza.”