Just Finished Reading John Grisham's The Appeal

I'm not sure why I decided to venture into another legal novel, since I already have a strong enough aversion to jury duty and tend to have a probably irrational disdain for lawyers and our justice system in general.  But John Grisham, a renown writer in this genre of fiction and two of whose more famous works (The Pelican Brief and The Firm) I've already read and enjoyed, will paint a more rational, positive picture of attorneys, judges, and the legal process in general, won't he?  I mean, I'm sure there are unscrupulous people out there who think that justice is something that you can buy, as much a commodity as a car or loaf of bread, but the legal system will filter out these dregs of society, expose them for what they are, and protect the weak and victimized...right?.  Unfortunately, as Grisham's novel The Appeal lays out, these folks are not only out there: they are wealthy, powerful, and used to getting their way by using any means available.

In The Appeal, a wealthy Wall Street corporation is handed a surprisingly severe verdict of $41 million in damages after being judged by a Mississippi jury as being liable for causing numerous cancer deaths and injury from its excessive toxic waste dumping that seeps into a community's underground water supply.  As the book's title suggests, this company, under its amoral chief stockholder, decides to appeal the verdict to the Mississippi Supreme Court. This puts the already financially strained plaintiff lawyer team on the edge of bankruptcy as this powerful man embarks on a strategy to stack that Court in his favor by buying the appeal's expected deciding vote in the upcoming judicial election.  This results in a very seedy combination of business, political, and judicial manipulation and leaves me, the reader, wondering if our legal system isn't completely tainted with corruption.  That, I'm sure, would sit well with Grisham, who with this story has obviously set out to state his case against the politicized elections of judges in favor of them being appointed to their seats.  I think he has a good point, but has regrettably fallen into that trap I've seen other writers succumb to in which, depending on which side of the conflict you're on, the protagonists all have great personalities and high moral character and the antagonists are all a bunch of slimy, selfish, lying thugs with anger management issues.  And he painted the picture of an ignorant and irrational voting population that only votes on hot button emotional issues like gay rights and guns, making them easy targets for manipulation by anonymous heavily-financed special interests with hidden agendas. Well, maybe Grisham got that one right...

The Appeal, which due to its author's good reputation, initially carried its own "appeal" to me, quickly transformed into a "trial" that made me want to steer clear of courthouses and lawyers even more than I usually do.  This is one very dreary novel that has an interesting message but a very depressing narrative.  I think I'll be reading other genres of fiction, at least for the immediate future...