John Grisham is the author of the true story, The Innocent Man. He has written many books, some have been published as far back as 1988 while others are more recent. His first book was A Time to Kill and he first best seller was The Firm.
John Grisham stated that he “never dreamed of being a writer.” It wasn’t in tell he witnessed a trail that he became inspired to write.
Grisham’s life seems to have turned in all kinds of directions before he started to write. When he was younger he wanted to be a baseball player. Then he released his dream wasn’t realistic so he went into accounting at Mississippi State University. Then in 1981 he graduated from law school. He was elected to the state house of Representatives in 1983 and served until 1990.
The trail that inspired Grisham to write his first book was not his case. However, he still took the time to watch the trail. It was about a twelve year old girl who had been raped and beaten. Which inspired Grisham to write a story where the girl’s father killed that rapist and was then put on trail himself. Grisham would wake up at 5 am each morning before work so he could work on writing it.
Once he had finished writing his first book A Time to Kill, it was rejected by more than 25 publishers. It wasn’t published until the unknown pushing company, Wynwood Press, decided to print it. The day after his first book was pushblished, Grisham decided to work on his second book, The Firm.
Most people would assume that everything in Grisham’s life was fine after he published his second book and Paramount offered him 600,000 dollars for movie rights to his book. However, after becoming a successful writer terrible things were happening at his firm. “Two of the firm’s lawyers [died] mysteriously.” He knew he could be risking his life if talked to the FBI about what had happened. They thought that the deaths were connected with the mafia. Grisham realized that after this incident, he had to stop working at the firm. So he began writing full time.
Then after writing many books, Grisham announced he was going back to the courtroom in 1995. He accepted a case in 1991 where he, “[represented] the estate of an employee of the Illinois Central Railroad who was killed on the job.”
Grisham stated that, “for lawyers, the main dream of escape is to get out of the profession.” Which is exactly what Grisham did, however, he didn’t stay out of the courtroom permanently.