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“Summons”
similar to other Grisham books In the two years since he published “The Brethren,” his last legal-themed whodunit, John Grisham has stretched his writing wings. “A Painted House,” a coming-of-age yarn, gave Grisham the chance to evoke his boyhood without involving a courtroom or attorneys. “Skipping Christmas,” still near the top of bestseller lists, was a new take on “A Christmas Carol” and “It’s a Wonderful Life.” Both “A Painted House” and “Skipping Christmas” were well-written. Grisham-haters among book critics had to admit that the guy was more than a one-trick pony. But Grisham built his mega-career on thrillers featuring lawyers in peril, and that’s still what his fans want. “The Summons” fits nicely into that oeuvre. Even though it presents only sporadic, secondary courtroom scenes, it’s all about those who interpret the law and those who can’t escape it. Ray Atlee teaches law at the University of Virginia. His life is far less than perfect. His wife has left him to become the trophy spouse of a local billionaire. He’s laboring to complete a boring textbook. He sees a plane he’d love to buy but can’t afford. And his father, a retired mossback Mississippi judge, is dying. Toss in a brother addicted to alcohol and drugs, and ol’ Ray is often sorry to see the sun come up on a new day. But in life and Grisham novels, things have a way of changing fast. Summoned home to small-town Mississippi by his father, Atlee arrives to discover Dad is dead and, by the way, about $3 million in $100 bills is stashed in boxes around the old homestead. This is especially odd because Reuben V. Atlee was in the habit of giving away the few bucks he had; Ray and prodigal brother Forrest were long ago informed there would be very little coming their way via inheritance. Three-fourths of the book involves Ray and the money. If the IRS doesn’t find out about it, he’s got the kind of windfall that could involve a fancy plane, a trophy wife of his own, and freedom from academia. But soon enough it turns out some unknown bad guys know about the money, too, and intend to have it for themselves. Ray desperately tries to find out where the loot came from, sometimes deluding himself that the impetus for his frantic search is a desire to “do the right thing” rather than scam the $3 mil. Grisham holds true to previous whodunit form by tossing in all sorts of colorful peripheral characters. Carpers claim Grisham is less interested in crafting good literature than in churning out movie blueprints that masquerade as novels. And it’s true that certain “Summons” scenes have, shall we say, a cinematic bent -- particularly one dinner scene aboard a yacht when Ray lets a progressively drunk lawyer tell him where the money REALLY came from. One of Grisham’s gifts as a writer has always been an ability to pull story threads together in the last few chapters. In “The Summons,” he’s not as successful at this as he has been in the past. There’s a semi-surprise ending that will astonish readers who haven’t been paying close attention, and it’s nice that, in the last few pages, there isn’t a tidy conclusion. But there’s never the sense that a powerful story has marched toward a proper resolution. Ray has bumbled through 341 pages, and it’s hard to feel sorry that things don’t turn out quite as he’d hoped. But “The Summons’ means things turned out the way most Grisham fans have hoped. Sure, Grisham will undoubtedly veer off into REAL fiction every now and then, but what the author’s devotees REALLY want are more lawyers on the run. And if ever there’s been a literary example of giving the people what they want, “The Summons” is it. |
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