An Appeal to John Grisham - why he needs to write a sequel to ‘The Appeal’
So…
I have an MFA in Creative Writing. So as such, I’m constantly in touch with writers who believe that literary fiction is where it’s all at. Mainstream fiction is absolutely abhorred by this rather elitist group of people. As someone who reads anything that’s printed / written and in languages I know (including English, Hindi, Marathi, Tamil and French), I have no such issues. I love reading. period. I love lit fiction almost as much as I love mainstream fiction. I’m actually even a little envious of writers like John Grisham and David Baldacci who know the pulse of the audience and deliver fast paced books at a fairly regular rate. Okay. So Baldacci publishes his new book even before I finish the old one but that’s a whole different story.
I recently finished The Appeal by Grisham. It was classic Grisham. Fast paced, about the legal system, and dealt with a very basic, moral and ethical issue.
****Spoiler Alert******
STOP reading if you don’t want to know how the book ends.
I had a long argument with my brother over the ending of the book. He felt that by making the rich company (that was morally completely corrupt) win, Grisham actually made the ‘victim’ win. This is because these days a lot of companies are slapped with class action lawsuits made by unscrupulous lawyers over extremely frivolous issues. For example - McDonald’s having to shell out some $8 million because a customer got scalded since their coffee was too hot - okay, preposterous. But that wasn’t the case with the situation in The Appeal. The big cimpany did screw over the poor townspeople. They needed to get their comeuppance. But didn’t.
I thought the ending was heartbreaking. As much as I was enthralled with Grisham as he outlines how the legal system can be played with in the US, somehow, I still held out the hope that the poor guys would finally triumph. That did not happen.
So - I’m throwing out this challenge to Mr. Grisham.
If he is as good a writer as I give him credit for, I would like him to write a sequel to The Appeal. I need for him to exploit his knowledge and awareness of the American legal system and then use his skills as a writer and in the sequel enlighten us as to how the smaller guy - with no money, no powers whatsoever can play the system for what it is and triumph.
If Grisham did that, I would be extremely impressed.
And I think I can actually convince some of my snotty lit friends that mainstream fiction has a lot of merit too!