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Mass Market Paperback Description:
"The decision to bomb the office of the radical Jew lawyer was reached with relative ease." So begins Grisham's legal leviathan The Chamber, a 676-page tome that scrutinizes the death penalty and all of its nuances--from racially motivated murder to the cruel and unusual effects of a malfunctioning gas chamber.
Adam Hall is a 26-year-old attorney, fresh out of law school and working at the best firm in Chicago. He might have been humming Timbuk 3's big hit, "The Future's So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades," if it wasn't for his psychotic Southern grandfather, Sam Cayhall. Cayhall, a card-carrying member of the KKK, is on death row for killing two men. Knowing his uncle will surely die without his legal expertise, Hall comes to the rescue and puts his dazzling career at stake, while digging up a barnyard of skeletons from his family's past. Grisham fans expecting the typical action-packed plot should ready themselves for a slower pace, well-fleshed-out characters, and heavy doses of sentimentalism.
Average Customer Rating:
Grisham makes a convincing case against the death penalty.
In The Chamber, we meet Sam Cayhall, initially a less than likable participant in a hateful Ku Klux Klan bombing who finally is convicted after three trials and sentenced to a painful death in the Mississippi gas chamber. However, by the time he is sentenced to die, 22 years after his crime, he is a frail, 70-year-old man. He has spent almost 10 years on Death Row and has become a jailhouse law expert, helping his fellow inmates with their various and futile appeals. Sam's rookie lawyer grandson, Adam Hall, emerges fresh out of law school to champion Sam's gangplank appeals for a stay of execution. Adam has to come to terms with a lot of family issues in the process, especially because he cannot understand his grandfather's motivations for his hateful crimes. Sam gains our pity and even sympathy in the final chapters of this book, as he experiences a spiritual redemption. He harbors a secret which, if divulged, could hurt those closest to him. I will not spoil the ending for those of you who have not read The Chamber. All I will say was that this book draws the reader right into the legal suspense of the courtroom and the tragic atmosphere of Death Row. And, although this book seems to be a plea to abolish the death penalty, Grisham never attempts to justify the horror of the crime described in its initial pages. Read this book -- it is controversial, and maybe you will cry.
Life on Death Row
John Grisham produces another great book here. It starts out with a bombing gone awry. One man meant to only bomb a building, but instead kills two innocent children and destroys another life. Thirty years later, one of the bombers in sitting on death row, a former Klan activist, waiting to die when his unknown grandson appears as a lawyer in hopes to rescue him.
Grisham does another excellent job describing a story, with great mastery and fluidity, of one man's last ditch effort to save his grandfather from death. Even though his emphasis on law is profound, he delves into deeper issues such as family, the question of the death penalty, and other emotional issues that one does see in other Grisham novels (with the exception of A Painted House).
What's really fascinating is that nothing in this book is not black and white. For each issue he brings up, there are good and bad points - each issue is a gray area. He describes the horrors of death row, but then juxtaposes it with the deaths of the two youngsters. Instead of making the main character purely good or evil, he mixes it a bit. Sometimes you wish the inmate would fry, sometimes you feel he's innocent.
Another good point about the book is that it's not a farfetched story, like the Street Lawyer or the Firm, it's a book that could be confused with a documentary. He doesn't revolve action or plot twists, but instead relies on the psychological aspects of all sides of a death sentence.
The only bad point, of which Grisham tends to do a lot, is he is repetitive. Many, many parts were repeated over and over again. This 700-page book could have been reduced to 500-page book without any loss of detail. Pages 200 to 400 just dragged on and on and on. The last 150 pages, though nothing exciting happens, is really intense and emotional, and is what makes this book.
I highly recommend this book to anyone. It's a slight departure for Grisham, as he delves into more psychological elements, but it works well.
Fascinating and moving
A friend of mine lent this to me saying it's the best book he's ever read. I can see why some people would think this. After just finishing The Chamber my first thoughts are that it was compulsive read but also that the ending left me feeling a little flat. It was fast paced, and at times moving (re the lynching photo and Halls thoughts about it). You're left feeling how awful it is to spend years on death row but...the alternatives are never gone into in depth-there is only so much one can do with this I suppose, especially if the authors trying to entertain as well as enlighten. It reminded me of Dead Man Walking where it took the murderers pending death, moments away, for him to be truly repentant. Like that movie The Chamber inspires sympathy and forgiveness for the main characters and shows that people can change. I got a little disinterested in all the legal procedures and ended up trying to flip through these paragraphs to concentrate on the plot and emotion. There were some loose ends but you can't often squeeze life into a perfect little package. I was very happy with the lack of romantic interest to slow the pace down (Grisham uses an alcoholic Aunt for this) at key moments. And happy that I didn't feel preached to by the author. Even now I'm not sure how strongly, if at all, Grisham is anti execution. He certainly didn't hold back on Cayhalls crimes. All in all a very good book. Very different to my normal fare and one I would strongly recommend.
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DVD's
Grisham makes a convincing case against the death penalty. 
Life on Death Row 
