The Chamber

Un libro fantastico e toccante che mostra in modo esemplare come l'odio non porti mai a nulla di buono.
E' questa infatti la riflessione più profonda che il libro stimola: a cosa serve odiare? a cosa serve uccidere? perché dovrebbe essere diverso se ad uccidere è un uomo o lo stato?
Un tema importante sfogliato con brutale lucidità.

Book 106 - John Grisham - The Chamber

And with this book - number 14 in the Grisham list - I now only have his latest two to read ….more of that in 2022.

This one is hard…a death sentence…the gas chamber…the KKK…so much that challenges the mind in this book from 1994.

The opening chapters set the scene with the horrible build up and carrying out of lynchings in the 1960s…leading to a bombing of a Jewish law firm…where, for a variety of reasons, the main lawyer has arrived with his two young children due to unforeseen family circumstances and what follows is tragic…it is inevitable…

Flash forward 30 years and a young, wet behind-the-ears lawyer, is working for the law firm defending the bomber…what is soon revealed is show more that the lawyer is the grandson and that what happened in the 60s was not as straightforward as was first thought. He manages to persuade the law firm that he wants to be the lead and only lawyer in the final appeals.

The book plays out over the four weeks leading to what will be the execution date. The coming together of murderer grandfather and his lawyer grandson is so emotionally driven that it overshadows the rest of the book. It is brilliantly written and the impact on the extended family is revealed slowly and with surgical precision…devastating.

The details to which the process is examined and explained by Grisham is forensic and if you are not persuaded to the wrongs of the death penalty by the end of the book then you haven’t read it right.

It is interesting to note as I finish Grisham’s early works how I much his writing has changed over 30 years. From the detailed descriptions of the crimes and the legal minutiae that form his early works to the later novels where the law is merely the hook to the thriller style story.

Cannot recommend his early works enough…but they are hard…nothing is simple and the phrase from the Charles Dickens classic ‘Oliver Twist’ that ‘the law is an a$$’ is never clearer than in ‘The Chamber’. show less

John Grisham writes a pretty good book, but his endings are awful. He doesn't end a book -- he simply quits writing. I didn't have an issue with Sam's fate -- he was, after all, a murderer. But Grisham dropped too many other threads, including the identity of the real guilty party. I can think of at least three other ways to have ended this book, each of which would have been more satisfying without being cliche. What the book needed was justice, even if it was dealt out underhandedly. -1996

Very interesting, well written like any other Grisham book. A
lot of angles that had potential but never quite came together, although I’m sure it was supposed to end that way anyway.

A fascinating account of one man's final days on Death Row. Sam Cayhall was accused and convicted of a bombing that resulted in the death of two young boys and the dismemberment of their father, a Jewish attorney in Mississippi in the 1960's. With a month to go before his execution, his long-lost grandson appears, offering to be his lawyer. Adam Hall wasn't aware of his grandfather's existence, much less his history until he was 17. Adam immediately decides to become an attorney in order to help Sam.
At the beginning of the book, the reader is disgusted with Sam and his actions and unclear why Adam wishes to engage in a family relationship with such a reprehensible man, but as the story plays out Sam becomes an almost sympathetic show more character.
As with all Grisham novels, the facts and procedure is exhaustively researched and accurate. An impressive novel, but a bit dry in parts. show less

Engrossing novel of an old man facing the death penalty and the grandson lawyer who tries to save him. G does a good job of explaining legal procedure. Ultimately, though, this is a book about keeping family secrets and forgiveness. This is no spoiler to say that Sam Cayhill did bad things but does he deserve the death penalty?

3.5 stars

Adam Hall is a new lawyer. In Mississippi, Sam Cayhall, a (former) KKK member, is on death row for bombing a building in 1967 where a Jewish lawyer worked; the bomb went off when the lawyer’s 5-year old twin sons were there and both were killed. When Adam learns that Sam is his grandfather (Adam was only 3 when his father left Mississippi and changed all their names so as to not be associated with his own racist KKK father), he decides to head to Mississippi to fight the death sentence against Sam.

This was good, but maybe not quite as good as many of Grisham’s others. I think it was a bit slower. There were sort of two parts to it: the legal case being made and the pro/con death penalty, but also the story of a family with show more secrets, as Adam and Sam (and Adam and his aunt, Sam’s daughter) get to know each other. I thought about upping my rating just a little bit at the end, but decided I’d stick with how I felt through the majority of the book and go with 3.5 stars “good”. show less