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| Categories | Thrillers & Suspense |
| Author | John Grisham |
| Publisher | Anchor; Reprint edition (September 27, 2005) |
| Language | English |
| Paperback | 576 pages |
| Item Weight | 15.2 ounces |
| Dimensions |
5.12 x 1.22 x 7.98 inches |
I. Book introduction
The Rainmaker is a 1995 novel by John Grisham, his sixth.
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • Grisham returns to the courtroom and weaves a riveting tale of legal intrigue and corporate greed.
Grisham’s sixth spellbinding novel of legal intrigue and corporate greed displays all of the intricate plotting, fast-paced action, humor, and suspense that have made him the most popular author of our time.
In his first courtroom thriller since A Time To Kill, John Grisham tells the story of a young man barely out of law school who finds himself taking on one of the most powerful, corrupt, and ruthless companies in America — and exposing a complex, multibillion-dollar insurance scam. In his final semester of law school Rudy Baylor is required to provide free legal advice to a group of senior citizens, and it is there that he meets his first “clients,” Dot and Buddy Black.
Their son, Donny Ray, is dying of leukemia, and their insurance company has flatly refused to pay for his medical treatments. While Rudy is at first skeptical, he soon realizes that the Blacks really have been shockingly mistreated by the huge company, and that he just may have stumbled upon one of the largest insurance frauds anyone’s ever seen — and one of the most lucrative and important cases in the history of civil litigation. The problem is, Rudy’s flat broke, has no job, hasn’t even passed the bar, and is about to go head-to-head with one of the best defense attorneys — and powerful industries — in America.
Plot
Rudy Baylor is about to graduate from Memphis State Law School. He secures a position with a Memphis law firm but loses the job when the firm is bought out by the large Memphis law firm Tinley Britt. As one of the few members of his class without a job lined up, a desperate Rudy is introduced to J. Lyman “Bruiser” Stone, a ruthless but successful ambulance chaser, who makes him an associate. To earn his fee, Rudy is required to hunt for potential clients at the local hospital and sign them up to personal injury lawsuits. He is introduced to Deck Shifflet, a less-than-ethical former insurance assessor who received a law degree but doesn’t practice law, having failed to pass the bar exam six times.
Rudy signs two clients. One is his new elderly landlady, who needs a revised will drawn. The other is a poor family, Dot and Buddy Black, whose insurance bad faith case could be worth several million dollars in damages. With Stone’s firm about to be raided by the police and the FBI, Rudy and Deck set up their own practice and file suit on behalf of the Blacks, whose leukemia-stricken son, Donny Ray, could have been saved by a bone marrow transplant for which his identical twin brother is a perfect match. The procedure should have been covered and paid for by their insurance carrier, Great Benefit Life Insurance, but the claim was instead denied.
Rudy, having just passed his bar exam, has never argued a case before a judge or jury. He now finds himself up against experienced and ruthless lawyers from Tinley Britt, headed by Leo F. Drummond. On his side, Rudy has several supporters and a sympathetic, newly-appointed judge. While preparing the case in the local hospital, he meets and later falls in love with Kelly Riker, a young battered wife recovering from injuries inflicted by her husband Cliff.
Donny Ray dies just before the case goes to trial. Rudy uncovers a scheme by Great Benefit to deny every insurance claim submitted, regardless of validity. Great Benefit was playing the odds that the insured would not consult an attorney. A former employee of Great Benefit testifies that the scheme generated an extra $40 million in revenue for the company. The trial ends with a plaintiff’s judgment of $50.2 million. Great Benefit quickly declares itself bankrupt, thus allowing it to avoid paying the judgment. This leads to a series of lawsuits which forces Great Benefit out of business. Ultimately, there is no payout for the grieving parents and no fee for Rudy, although Dot was never concerned with the settlement money, because for her helping to put the company out of business is an even greater victory.
During the Black trial, when Kelly is beaten again by Cliff, Rudy helps her file for divorce. While he and Kelly retrieve items from her home, Cliff arrives and threatens to kill Rudy, attacking him with a baseball bat. Rudy wrestles the bat away from Cliff and cracks his skull with it. Kelly intervenes and orders him to leave. Cliff dies from the injuries and Kelly allows herself to be charged with manslaughter to protect Rudy. Rudy gets the charges dropped, but Cliff’s vengeful family have made several death threats against them both. Rudy and Kelly leave the state, heading for someplace where Rudy – who has become disillusioned with the law – can become a teacher, and Kelly can attend college.
Editorial Reviews
“A taut and terrific page-turner.”–Entertainment Weekly
“Great fun to read . . . The complex plotting is Grisham’s major accomplishment.”–Los Angeles Times
“The pace is fast, the characters quirky, the result entertaining.”–USA Today
“[Grisham is] a mighty narrative talent.”–Chicago Sun-Times
About John Grisham
John Grisham (born February 8, 1955 in Jonesboro, Arkansas) is an American novelist, lawyer and former member of the 7th district of the Mississippi House of Representatives, known for his popular legal thrillers. According to the American Academy of Achievement, Grisham has written 28 consecutive number-one fiction bestsellers, and his books have sold 300 million copies worldwide. Along with Tom Clancy and J. K. Rowling, Grisham is one of only three authors to have sold two million copies on a first printing.
Grisham graduated from Mississippi State University and earned a Juris Doctor from the University of Mississippi School of Law in 1981. He practised criminal law for about a decade and served in the Mississippi House of Representatives from 1983 to 1990.
Grisham’s first novel, A Time to Kill, was published in June 1989, four years after he began writing it. Grisham’s first bestseller, The Firm, sold more than seven million copies. The book was adapted into a 1993 feature film of the same name, starring Tom Cruise, and a 2012 TV series which continues the story ten years after the events of the film and novel. Seven of his other novels have also been adapted into films:
- The Chamber,
- The Client,
- A Painted House,
- The Pelican Brief,
- The Rainmaker,
- The Runaway Jury, and Skipping Christmas.
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 Girsham lives on a farm in central Virginia.
II. Reviewer: The Rainmaker
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1. MISTY MARIE HARMS reviews for The Rainmaker
Rudy Baylor is on the cusp of graduating from law school. In his final semester, he is required to give free legal advice to a group of senior citizens. Dot and Buddy Black are his first clients. Their son, Donny Ray, is dying of leukemia, and their insurance company has flatly refused to pay for his medical treatments. Rudy quickly realizes the Black’s have been mistreated. As he digs deeper, he is shocked to discover that the company as not only screwed the Blacks, but possibly is committing the largest insurance fraud ever seen. Rudy, broke and still trying to pass the bar, is going to have to find the strength and courage to take on powerful attorneys and company in America. I loved this book. It is the little man taking on the big man for his fellow humans. There is good humor throughout the book, I really enjoyed. Excellent book.
2. ROB reviews for The Rainmaker
A stand alone legal thriller published 1995
I really enjoyed this legal thriller.
All the things that you have come to expect from John Grisham are here.
A young lawyer, Rudy Baylor, is fresh out of law school and struggling to make ends meet. He has one job prospect, not the dream job he was hoping for but something to get his foot on the ladder. A the last minute the rug is pulled from under him when he is told that he has just lost the job that he hadn’t even started yet.
Down but not out Rudy has one ace up his sleeve. Whilst during a meet and greet meeting with some senior citizens’ he is told by an elderly lady that she has a problem with an insurance company. It seems that her son is dying of leukaemia and the insurance company is refusing to pay for a life saving bone marrow transplant.
With no where to go and with nothing to lose Rudy throws himself into this David and Goliath battle.
The story is absorbing. The characters are memorable and the courtroom scenes will have you rooting for the little guys.
A thoroughly entertaining 4 star read.
3. JESSICA reviews for The Rainmaker
Why did I like this book so much? Because it showed the “other” side of lawyering – the side that isn’t romanticized in Grisham’s other novels. For once, there were no mobsters, no politicians with hidden agendas, no paranoid millionaires with money to burn, no fresh-out-of-college rookies who land in hot water because they accidentally stumbled upon a secret that their storied firms had been keeping for years.
Rudy struggles from the outset. He’s handed one opportunity after another, only to see it vanish in a twinkling. He’s forced to find work at the bottom of the lawerly barrel, haunting hospitals in the hopes of finding cases to prosecute.
That actually leads to a case that Rudy feels passionately about, and along with the storyline revolving around Kelly, makes up the majority of the book.
I liked Rudy’s idealism, his fear when having to go to court for the first time, his passion (and fear) for Kelly, and his doubts about his chosen line of work. It was a refreshing change from Grisham’s other novels, and a great view of how the not-so-fortunate lawyer grads end up.
4. JOY D reviews for The Rainmaker
Law student Rudy Baylor is graduating from law school and is ready to start working for a firm. As part of finishing his coursework, he visits a retirement center where students provide law assistance to seniors. He researches a case that becomes important in his working life. When the firm’s employment offer falls through, he finds himself in a situation with little money, no job, and the need to pass the bar exam. This is another of Grisham’s legal-related books, though more of a courtroom drama than a thriller. The villain is an insurance company and the victim a poor family whose son is dying of leukemia. The storyline is engaging. It is filled with colorful characters. It is told in the first-person present tense by Rudy, so the reader is privy to his thoughts and motivations as he searches for a job and pursues his cases. He has a quick wit and sarcastic sense of humor. It explores legal ethics from the perspective of a new lawyer who wants to “do the right thing” while dealing with unscrupulous tactics of others. The story is entertaining and a fast read despite its length. The downsides include a bit of ageism and sexism, and a subplot related to an abused spouse does not work as well as the court case. Recommended to those that enjoy a story that engages the brain and provides an opportunity to root for the underdog.
5. BOKERY reviews for The Rainmaker
This Grisham’s 7th’ book that I’ve read. And like all former ones, it’s a very enjoyable read. His ability to take the most boring materials of the legal profession and turn them into a a capturing tale, is incredible. Being a lawyer, i can judge his referrence to the legal work in a more professional way than the layman reader. He deserves all credits for involving realistic legal practice to create his plot, rather than taking the easiesr route of using far from real elements to structure the story. It is really admirable how he can simplify complex legal proceedings and business maters and present them to the layman reader in such a clear and captivating way. And beyond all of this, he portraits his main characters in such a human and warmly manner, with all their strengths and weaknesses, that you can’t avoid feeling emphaty and love to them. This book has its fun points though it is not as hilarious as “the Litigators”. There is not a dull moment in these 500 pages’ book. It grips you until the very last page, with numberless twists in between . I can’t wait for starting the next Grisham’s book.
6. BISHOP reviews for The Rainmaker
Give Me A Break!
John Grisham has written an engaging volume; great tale and a page-turner. Very interesting. But I give only 4 stars because of the stereotypical language used early on and lightly scattered throughout.
This good book is marred by the unfunny early portrayal of low-class poor people with an artificial attempt at local “Southern” color involving “old geezers” in a nursing home (in the first chapter of The Rainmaker (1995) and onward). It falls flat. And, worse, the whole effort is obnoxious, at best.
For example: Grisham uses the expression (quoting Grisham) “sumbitch,” seemingly coming from the old iconic movie “Smoky and the Bandit” (1977) starring Jackie Gleason (the southern bumpkin sheriff, Buford T. Justice, who constantly uses the silly term that virtually nobody down South uses),
Nobody, in my years of experience in the Southern States, and that includes Memphis, northern Mississippi, Arkansas, Carolina’s, and Texas, etc., uses that kind of idiot language: not poor blacks, not poor whites, not old “geezers,” not anyone. Never heard it. What an insult to picturesque and lovely Southern colloquialism. Give me a break,Grisham!
But wait! I want to give John Grisham his due and 3 cheers. Grisham (a lawyer who is on the board of directors of the Innocence Project) wrote a great tale and the characters were well-developed and believable. Bravo, Grisham, Bravo!!! Highly recommended.
7. NENETTEU reviews for The Rainmaker
This will go as one of my favorites among Grisham’s books. It has all the typical scenarios for a legal thriller. A lawyer fresh from school and a successful bar exam representing a lowly family in an insurance claim case, pitted against a big shot from a prestigious and lofty law firm representing one of the biggest insurance companies in America. It’s David versus Goliath!
I love legal thrillers, and however typical they are, just give me a good story, and I’ll be content and would probably have nothing but praises in the end. This is one such good story. The groundwork was properly set at the beginning, there were the ups and downs of a startup lawyer; the high energy of the courtroom scenes; that element of romance; the humor spread here and there; and most importantly, a firm conclusion.
More than this, I love the realistic characters and scenarios, most especially the emotional highs that emanated from winning a record verdict, only to be sent crashing back on the ground mere days afterwards.
I’ve reviewed and hated a couple of Grisham’s books in the past, but this one, I love!
8. NATALIE VELLACOTT reviews for The Rainmaker
One of my favourite Grisham books. Great drama in the courtroom as Rudy Baylor, novice lawyer sues established, wealthy insurance company Great Benefit. Their crime? Repeatedly denying the claim of a terminally ill young man apparently just because they could…or so they thought.
This book really brings out some important lessons; that in the end, big dreams of wealth, success and power usually end up as just that–dreams! Those that do make it often find that the end result is not what they were seeking so they end up striving for more, and more, and more…..and so it goes on. I think it was Jim Carey who said that he wished everyone could be rich and famous so that then they would realise it wasn’t the answer….I love the end of this novel as Baylor realises what’s really important to him.
There is some swearing in this book and some violence which in places is quite graphic. There is also a domestic violence storyline and some mild sexual innuendo.
9. KAREN reviews for The Rainmaker
I was obsessed with John Grisham novels when I was a preteen. I got sucked into these novels and dreamed of becoming a hotshot trial lawyer myself. I eventually found my way into social work, but I am still a sucker for a good legal thriller. This book is technically a re-read for me and it was everything I expected: a well-paced and satisfying read, albeit heavy on coincidences and lucky breaks for our hero. And who would have guessed that Grisham’s critique of giant health insurance corporations would still ring so true today?
My only complaint is that I hated the narrator for the audio book. He made Rudy sound gruff and sarcastic, whereas I prefer to think of him as being closer to Matt Damon’s interpretation in the movie.
Oh, and having previously worked in a domestic violence shelter, I found Rudy’s pursuit of Kelly to be kind of inappropriate and skeezy. I think their romance is a stretch.
10. COREY reviews for The Rainmaker
Another book I gotta put up there with one of Grisham’s best! The Rainmaker tells us about the lies and corruption behind an Insurance Company, and it goes to show me that some companies are really like that, insensitive and cruel, makes me not want to trust any of them. But anyways, awhile back I saw the movie with Matt Damon, because I’m a big fan of him, I only saw it once and I don’t remember it that well, and I was a little young to understand the legal stuff.
But now I’ve read the book and it was very easy to follow, and it has kind of a different feel to it than some of his past books, more emotional. The story held my interest and also holds a big twist In the end that you won’t see coming. Highly recommended!
III. The Rainmaker Quotes
The best book quotes from The Rainmaker by John Grisham
“life is too short to despise people who simply can’t help what they’ve done.”
“So this is how the uninsured die. In a society filled with wealthy doctors and gleaming hospitals and state-of-the-art medical gadgetry and the bulk of the world’s Nobel winners, it seems outrageous to allow Donny Ray Black to wither away and die without proper medical care.”
“I learn an enormously valuable lesson. He’s just a man. He might be a legendary trial lawyer with lots of notches in his belt, but he’s just another man.”
“Don’t compromise yourself – you’re all you have.”
“Some people have more guts than brains.”
“I’m alone and outgunned, scared and inexperienced, but I’m right.”
“Please give me fifty more years of work and fun, then an instant death when I’m sleeping.”
“I don’t feel stupid, just inadequate. After three years of studying the law, I’m very much aware of how little I know.”
“A battered wife is a married woman until she gets a divorce. Or until she kills the bastard.”
“All students enter law school with a certain amount of idealism and desire to serve the public, but after three years of brutal competition we care for nothing but the right job with the right firm where we can make partner in seven years and earn big bucks.”
“The coffee arrives, and we backslide into what lawyers do best—talking about other lawyers.”
“He’s my client, and he’s counting on me. I’ll take him, warts and all.”
“There are few things in life worse than a long-winded lawyer.”
“We cuss them because we’re not good enough for them. We hate them because they wouldn’t look at us, couldn’t be bothered to give us an interview. I guess there’s a Trent & Brent in every city, in every field. I didn’t make it and I don’t belong, so I’ll just go through life hating them.”
“The company later went broke, and of course all blame was directed at the lawyers. Not once did I hear any talk that maybe a trace of mismanagement could in any way have contributed to the bankruptcy.”
“Anyone can cook a trout. The real art is in hooking the damned thing.”
“I am motivated by thoughts of my sorrowful little client and the screwing that he got. I’m the only lawyer Donny Ray has, and it will take much more than paper to slow me down.”
“It takes just one, he says over and over. You hear that all the time in this business. One big case, and you can retire. That’s one reason lawyers do so many sleazy things, like full-color ads in the yellow pages, and billboards, and placards on city buses, and telephone solicitation. You hold your nose, ignore the stench of what you’re doing, ignore the snubs and snobbery of big-firm lawyers, because it takes only one.”
“F. Franklin the Fourth has a job with a firm rich in heritage, money and pretentiousness, a firm vastly superior to Brodnax and Speer. His sidekicks at the moment are W. Harper Whittenson, an arrogant little snot who will, thankfully, leave Memphis and practice with a mega-firm in Dallas; J. Townsend Gross, who has accepted a position with another huge firm; and James Straybeck, a sometimes friendly sort who’s suffered three years of law school without an initial to place before his name or numerals to stick after it. With such a short name, his future as a big-firm lawyer is in jeopardy. I doubt if he’ll make it.”
“Like a snake creeping through the undergrowth, I sneak into the law school well past noon and hours after both of my scheduled classes have broken up.”
“I can feel the competition here, very much like the first few weeks of law school when we were terribly concerned with each other’s initial progress. I nod at a few acquaintances, silently hoping they flunk the exam because they’re silently hoping I Collapse too. Such is the nature of the profession.”
“SUDDEN AFFLUENCE triggers a desire for the better things in life.”
“Deck has reduced the Canons of Ethics to the Big Three: Fight for your client, don’t steal, try not to lie.”
“Law school is nothing but three years of wasted stress. We spend countless hours digging for information we’ll never need. We are bombarded with lectures that are instantly forgotten. We memorize cases and statutes which will be reversed and amended tomorrow. If I’d spent fifty hours a week for the past three years training under a good lawyer, then I would be a good lawyer. Instead, I’m a nervous third-year student afraid of the simplest of legal problems and terrified of my impending bar exam.”
“preferred means of treatment that no one but a quack would claim”
“I’m sure that if I stay in this business I’ll one day think of a dirtier trick, but one’s hard to imagine now.”
Excerpted from The Rainmaker by John Grisham
Chapter 1 – The Rainmaker
MY DECISION to become a lawyer was irrevocably sealed when I realized my father hated the legal profession. I was a young teenager, clumsy, embarrassed by my awkwardness, frustrated with life, horrified of puberty, about to be shipped off to a military school by my father for insubordination. He was an ex-Marine who believed boys should live by the crack of the whip. I’d developed a quick tongue and an aversion to discipline, and his solution was simply to send me away. It was years before I forgave him.
He was also an industrial engineer who worked seventy hours a week for a company that made, among many other items, ladders. Because by their very nature ladders are dangerous devices, his company became a frequent target of lawsuits. And because he handled design, my father was the favorite choice to speak for the company in depositions and trials. I can’t say that I blame him for hating lawyers, but I grew to admire them because they made his life so miserable. He’d spend eight hours haggling with them, then hit the martinis as soon as he walked in the door. No hellos. No hugs. No dinner. Just an hour or so of continuous bitching while he slugged down four martinis then passed out in his battered recliner. One trial lasted three weeks, and when it ended with a large verdict against the company my mother called a doctor and they hid him in a hospital for a month.
The company later went broke, and of course all blame was directed at the lawyers. Not once did I hear any talk that maybe a trace of mismanagement could in any way have contributed to the bankruptcy.
Liquor became his life, and he became depressed. He went years without a steady job, which really ticked me off because I was forced to wait tables and deliver pizza so I could claw my way through college. I think I spoke to him twice during the four years of my undergraduate studies. The day after I learned I had been accepted to law school, I proudly returned home with this great news. Mother told me later he stayed in bed for a week.
Two weeks after my triumphant visit, he was changing a lightbulb in the utility room when (I swear this is true) a ladder collapsed and he fell on his head. He lasted a year in a coma in a nursing home before someone mercifully pulled the plug.
Several days after the funeral, I suggested the possibility of a lawsuit, but Mother was just not up to it. Also, I’ve always suspected he was partially inebriated when he fell. And he was earning nothing, so under our tort system his life had little economic value.
My mother received a grand total of fifty thousand dollars in life insurance, and remarried badly. He’s a simple sort, my stepfather, a retired postal clerk from Toledo, and they spend most of their time square dancing and traveling in a Winnebago. I keep my distance. Mother didn’t offer me a dime of the money, said it was all she had to face the future with, and since I’d proven rather adept at living on nothing, she felt I didn’t need any of it. I had a bright future earning money; she did not, she reasoned. I’m certain Hank, the new husband, was filling her ear full of financial advice. Our paths will cross again one day, mine and Hank’s.
I will finish law school in May, a month from now, then I’ll sit for the bar exam in July. I will not graduate with honors, though I’m somewhere in the top half of my class. The only smart thing I’ve done in three years of law school was to schedule the required and difficult courses early, so I could goof off in this, my last semester. My classes this spring are a joke: Sports Law, Art Law, Selected Readings from the Napoleonic Code and, my favorite, Legal Problems of the Elderly.
It is this last selection that has me sitting here in a rickety chair behind a flimsy folding table in a hot, damp, metal building filled with an odd assortment of seniors, as they like to be called. A hand-painted sign above the only visible door majestically labels the place as the Cypress Gardens Senior Citizens Building, but other than its name the place has not the slightest hint of flowers or greenery. The walls are drab and bare except for an ancient, fading photograph of Ronald Reagan in one corner between two sad little flagstone, the Stars and Stripes, the other, the state flag of Tennessee. The building is small, somber and cheerless, obviously built at the last minute with a few spare dollars of unexpected federal money. I doodle on a legal pad, afraid to look at the crowd inching forward in their folding chairs.
There must be fifty of them out there, an equal mixture of blacks and whites, average age of at least seventy-five, some blind, a dozen or so in wheelchairs, many wearing hearing aids. We were told they meet here each day at noon for a hot meal, a few songs, an occasional visit by a desperate political candidate. After a couple of hours of socializing, they will leave for home and count the hours until they can return here. Our professor said this was the highlight of their day.
We made the painful mistake of arriving in time for lunch. They sat the four of us in one corner along with our leader, Professor Smoot, and examined us closely as we picked at neoprene chicken and icy peas. My Jell-O was yellow, and this was noticed by a bearded old goat with the name Bosco scrawled on his Hello-My-Name-Is tag stuck above his dirty shirt pocket. Bosco mumbled something about yellow Jell-O, and I quickly offered it to him, along with my chicken, but Miss Birdie Birdsong corralled him and pushed him roughly back into his seat. Miss Birdsong is about eighty but very spry for her age, and she acts as mother, dictator and bouncer of this organization. She works the crowd like a veteran ward boss, hugging and patting, schmoozing with other little blue-haired ladies, laughing in a shrill voice and all the while keeping a wary eye on Bosco who undoubtedly is the bad boy of the bunch. She lectured him for admiring my Jell-O, but seconds later placed a full bowl of the yellow putty before his glowing eyes. He ate it with his stubby fingers.
An hour passed. Lunch proceeded as if these starving souls were feasting on seven courses with no hope of another meal. Their wobbly forks and spoons moved back and forth, up and down, in and out, as if laden with precious metals. Time was of absolutely no consequence. They yelled at each other when words stirred them. They dropped food on the floor until I couldn’t bear to watch anymore. I even ate my Jell-O. Bosco, still covetous, watched my every move. Miss Birdie fluttered around the room, chirping about this and that.
Professor Smoot, an oafish egghead complete with crooked bow tie, bushy hair and red suspenders, sat with the stuffed satisfaction of a man who’d just finished a fine meal, and lovingly admired the scene before us. He’s a kindly soul, in his early fifties, but with mannerisms much like Bosco and his friends, and for twenty years he’s taught the kindly courses no one else wants to teach and few students want to take. Children’s Rights, Law of the Disabled, Seminar on Domestic Violence, Problems of the Mentally Ill and, of course, Geezer Law, as this one is called outside his presence. He once scheduled a course to be called Rights of the Unborn Fetus, but it attracted a storm of controversy so Professor Smoot took a quick sabbatical.
He explained to us on the first day of class that the purpose of the course was to expose us to real people with real legal problems. It’s his opinion that all students enter law school with a certain amount of idealism and desire to serve the public, but after three years of brutal competition we care for nothing but the right job with the right firm where we can make partner in seven years and earn big bucks. He’s right about this.
The class is not a required one, and we started with eleven students. After a month of Smoot’s boring lectures and constant exhortations to forsake money and work for free, we’d been whittled down to four. It’s a worthless course, counts for only two hours, requires almost no work, and this is what attracted me to it. But, if there were more than a month left, I seriously doubt I could tough it out. At this point, I hate law school. And I have grave concerns about the practice of law.
This is my first confrontation with actual clients, and I’m terrified. Though the prospects sitting out there are aged and infirm, they are staring at me as if I possess great wisdom. I am, after all, almost a lawyer, and I wear a dark suit, and I have this legal pad in front of me on which I’m drawing squares and circles, and my face is fixed in an intelligent frown, so I must be capable of helping them. Seated next to me at our folding table is Booker Kane, a black guy who’s my best friend in law school. He’s as scared as I am. Before us on folded index cards are our written names in black felt–Booker Kane and Rudy Baylor. That’s me. Next to Booker is the podium behind which Miss Birdie is screeching, and on the other side is another table with matching index cards proclaiming the presence of F. Franklin Donaldson the Fourth, a pompous ass who for three years now has been sticking initials and numerals before and after his name. Next to him is a real bitch, N. Elizabeth Erickson, quite a gal, who wears pinstripe suits, silk ties and an enormous chip on her shoulder. Many of us suspect she also wears a jockstrap.
Smoot is standing against the wall behind us. Miss Birdie is doing the announcements, hospital reports and obituaries. She’s yelling into a microphone with a sound system that’s working remarkably well. Four large speakers hang in the corners of the room, and her piercing voice booms around and crashes in from all directions. Hearing aids are slapped and taken out. For the moment, no one is asleep. Today there are three obituaries, and when Miss Birdie finally finishes I see a few tears in the audience. God, please don’t let this happen to me. Please give me fifty more years of work and fun, then an instant death while I’m sleeping.To our left against a wall, the pianist comes to life and smacks sheets of music on the wooden grill in front of her. Miss Birdie fancies herself as some kind of political analyst, and just as she starts railing against a proposed increase in the sales tax, the pianist attacks the keys. “America the Beautiful,” I think. With pure relish, she storms through a clanging rendition of the opening refrain, and the geezers grab their hymnals and wait for the first verse. Miss Birdie does not miss a beat. Now she’s the choir director. She raises her hands, then claps them to get attention, then starts flopping them all over the place with the opening note of verse one. Those who are able slowly get to their feet.
The howling fades dramatically with the second verse. The words are not as familiar and most of these poor souls can’t see past their noses, so the hymnals are useless. Bosco’s mouth is suddenly closed but he’s humming loudly at the ceiling.
The piano stops abruptly as the sheets fall from the grill and scatter onto the floor. End of song. They stare at the pianist who, bless her heart, is snatching at the air and fumbling around her feet where the music has gathered.
“Thank you!” Miss Birdie yells into the microphone as they suddenly fall back into their seats. “Thank you. Music is a wonderful thang. Let’s give thanks to God for beautiful music.”
“Amen!” Bosco roars.
“Amen,” another relic repeats with a nod from the back row.
“Thank you,” Miss Birdie says. She turns and smiles at Booker and me. We both lean forward on our elbows and once again look at the crowd. “Now,” she says dramatically, “for the program today, we are so pleased to have Professor Smoot here again with some of his very bright and handsome students.” She flops her baggy hands at us and smiles with her gray and yellow teeth at Smoot who has quietly made his way to her side. “Aren’t they handsome?” she asks, waving at us. “As you know,” Miss Birdie proceeds into the microphone, “Professor Smoot teaches law at Memphis State, that’s where my youngest son studied, you know, but didn’t graduate, and every year Professor Smoot visits us here with some of his students who’ll listen to your legal problems and give advice that’s always good, and always free, I might add.” She turns and lays another sappy smile upon Smoot. “Professor Smoot, on behalf of our group, we say welcome back to Cypress Gardens. We thank you for your concern about the problems of senior citizens. Thank you. We love you.”
….
Note: Above are quotes and excerpts from the book “The Rainmaker by John Grisham”. If you find it interesting and useful, don’t forget to buy paper books to support the Author and Publisher!
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