"The Testament"- By John Grisham

Robert Xu, Honors English A1 Progression: Page 250

I originally wanted to be a part of Gary Gates's Grisham Group(ha-ha), but that fell-through due to the decision to read The Chamber, a book I had already read.

I was thrilled when I discovered online that there was a novel by John Grisham that I hadn't torn through yet. I immediately rushed to the library and claimed my book for the independent reading project. The Testament begins with billionaire Troy Phelan pondering about the division of his life earnings in his will. He comes to the conclusion that even 11 billion dollars in collective assets would not last very long in the hands of his deficit-spending children. This led him to the event that set the platform for the rest of the plot, he left all his money to an illegitimate child working as a missionary in Brazil. Troy Phelan's former right-hand man sent out Nate, a washed up corporate lawyer straight out of rehab to locate the missionary.

First off, I respect John Grisham for trying to move out of his comfort-zone of courtroom-dramas and small-town life in the cotton strip. The story flipped between the hunt for the missionary in the jungles of Brazil, and the catastrophic effect of Mr. Phelan's monumental will back in civilized society. What I personally disliked about The Testament was that it did not focus enough on the latter. While I love when authors try to move out of their comfort-zones, at the end of the day the reason that people buy John Grisham's books are his court-room dramas and vivid descriptions of small town life.

John Grisham had spent too much time writing about Nate's experiences in a developing country, that the novel lost its focus. I personally felt that he should have sticked to developing and centralizing his plot around the mess created by 11 billion dollars in contemporary society. To be fair, he did attempt to equally ration the amount of pages between the two plots, but I found myself debating whether to skip all the pages narrating Nate's day-to-day experiences with Native Americans and the Brazilian culture.

Don't get me wrong, I'm sure there is a large audience of people that love reading about different cultures, and lewis-and-clark big out-door adventures, but I'm not one of those people. I dislike having to reiterate this, but obviously long-term fans of John Grisham do not continue to purchase his books for his vivid descriptions of the jungle, but rather the vivid descriptions of the courthouse. On a purely literary level, Nate's experience traveling through Brazil was quite painful to read through. The dialogue, or at least lack of meaningful dialogue made Nate's adventure so far, excruciatingly tedious to read through. The book was very uneventful, and after the novel shifted gears into Nate's Brazilian expedition, I found myself more and more reluctant to sit down and continue reading the novel.

I might have sounded critical of John Grisham's novel in this post, but I will give credit where it is due. There are a few parts of the novel where you feel like resting your eyes for a few minutes, perhaps a few hours, but the court-room drama aspect, like always is impeccable. All and all I'm only on the 250th page of The Testament, and I sincerely hope John Grisham brings more of the writing style that fans have come to know and love.