Gray Mountain | John Grisham

Author Profile

John Grisham is the author of forty-seven consecutive #1 bestsellers, which have been translated into nearly fifty languages. His recent books include The Boys From Biloxi, The Judge’s List, Sooley, and his third Jake Brigance novel, A Time for Mercy, which is being developed by HBO as a limited series.

Grisham is a two-time winner of the Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction and was honored with the Library of Congress Creative Achievement Award for Fiction.

When he’s not writing, Grisham serves on the board of directors of the Innocence Project and of Centurion Ministries, two national organizations dedicated to exonerating those who have been wrongfully convicted. Much of his fiction explores deep-seated problems in our criminal justice system.

John lives on a farm in central Virginia.

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Non-review Rant

This one is the book #2 in January 2024. and I’m going to publish it out of order (I should be scheduling it for late March 2024). This book needs a review right now. There are too many things in my head and I want to include as many opinions as possible before I forget them. I need to get it out of the system.

Recap

More than a legal drama, it was a character’s journey. Samantha Kofer was the “pencil pusher” working in a big law firm Scully & Pershing in New York City, proofreading documents for real estate, elbowing her way on hoping to become a junior partner soon. She had never seen the inside of a courtroom, or files a lawsuit or practiced any real “law”. When she was fired owing to the great depression, she was furloughed-get a non-paying job at some legal clinic, do good stuff and come back.

The only problem? she hasn’t been a real lawyer. Initially a misfit, she slowly learns her way around a small county and its people. She gets involved, unknowingly, into a web of deceit and a dangerous lawsuit and before she knows it, it’s too late. 

And thus begins what is not so much legal but definitely a lot of drama.

Review

I don’t know how to review it because there are too many things in my head and it will not be a coherent review. I’ll just have to go by my favourite (non) bullet list and try to cover as many things as possible before I forget them. I need to get it out of the system.

Depessing

Red, bold, and underlined, I can’t stress on it enough.

Shit happened at Brady left, right and center. Couples fought, they filed for divorce, and they got back together. People died, many of them, and then there was a depressing back story about strip mining, black lungs, the place with highest rate of cancer; the list goes on and on. Shit happened, and it reminded me a lot about Khuda Ki Basti.

The artwork

The paperback has, not so surprisingly, gray mountain in the background with a burning coal on the foreground. Could it be more obvious and awesome than that?

I loved reading a paperback and I particularly liked a single matchstick on the first page and a burnt-out one at the last. What a nice little touch! Hey, I’ve read a paperback after ages and I’m going to show-off as much as I can.

There was a lot of repetition

“Is it lega”?

“It is legal because it is not illegal.”

~ 

“That can’t be legal.”

“Mining is legal but there are a lot of illegal activities going on.”

I’m just a paraphrasing but this happened in a few places. The whole “strip mining is like r**e of the land, and miners are back, and valleys are filled with waste etc was repeated so often that I had to start skipping several passages. I don’t like doing that, but what choice did I have?

The Characters

The characters we could root for. Forget about Samantha or Donovan or even Jeff, both Mattie and Annette were a force to reckon with. Not only did Samantha learned a lot from them, but we come to adore these two women. Vic, the friend who was always there for Gray brothers had only a couple of appearances but he was so interesting. Mattie’s husband Chester, Annette’s kids and even Baddy’s daughter… And there were many others. I’m not going to spoil it all but let’s just say we meet a good bunch.

Unfinished

Yes, the title is inspired from like Priyanka Chopra’s autobiography 🙂

The first thing I mentally marked was when Bard forwarded a call to Samantha about social security on Samantha’s first day at the legal aid clinic, even though legal aid clinic categorically refuses social security cases. Why did Bard forward the call? Samantha doesn’t confront, but she vows to confront when the time is right.

And the time never comes. In fact, we see very little of Bard in the rest of the novel. I felt so cheated. I was promised a confrontation (a cat fight) and I got none. I’ve every reason to be pissed. 

And then there was the Jeff/Samantha story that ended in a ditch as Jeff took a break from Brady. Many cases were discussed but few got resolved. The only case that got “resolved” was Pamela Booker’s. She got the settlement money, she and her kid got a good life. Rest everything was pending. The Tate’s verdict, the lawsuits, the “documents” that Donovan stole, the Crump will, everything else was unfinished. We need a sequel, people. I imagined that there would be, and I googled it. Instead, I found a few interesting questions, that I thought I could answer.

Q: How does Gray Mountain end?

Badly and sadly. I mean, sure it has a “happy for now” themed ending but I was so not content with that. After reading a ton of romance books in the previous year, I wanted to see Jeff and Samantha together. That DID not happen.

Q: What does Samantha Kofer do at the end of Gray Mountain?

The story concludes with Samantha weighing various employment options-going back to New York and work for her ex-boss Andy Grubman; or work with Jeff and finish Donovan’s business; or take Jarret London’s offer to help him with the several high-profile lawsuits that Donovan would have pursued; or staying back at the legal aid clinic and take a small salary. It isn’t hard to guess which options she chose.

Q: Does Gray Mountain resolve all the court cases?

No!

A big fat NO.

The ending of the novel does not resolve the court case that were discussed at length throughout the novel-none of them. The Tate case needs an appeal, the Ryzer case needs filing a lawsuit, the Krull Mining is still out and about doing shitty business despite the fact that the documents of evidence have been retrieved heroically by Jeff, the Crump family’s will contest was still pending, and Jeff had left Brady. Long story short, this needs a sequel.

Honestly, this has very little legal drama and a long, sad,and depressing thriller/tragedy. I don’t know how to feel about this, but I’d sure recommend it.

Stay tuned for more book reviews in my “one book review per month” series. This month, I have published two. Isn’t that nice?

Until next time, happy reading!