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Biography and careerThe second oldest of four siblings was born in Jonesboro, Arkansas, to Southern Baptist parents of modest means. His father worked as a construction worker and a cotton farmer.[1] After moving frequently, the family settled in 1967 in the town of Southaven in De Soto County, Mississippi, where Grisham graduated from Southaven High School. Encouraged by his mother, the young Grisham was an avid reader, and was especially influenced by the work of John Steinbeck whose clarity he admired.
In 1983, he was elected as a Democrat to the Mississippi House of Representatives, where he served until 1990. During his time as a legislator, he continued his private law practice in Southaven. He has donated over $100,000 to Democratic Party candidates. [2] In 1984 at the De Soto County courthouse in Hernando, Grisham witnessed the harrowing testimony of a 12-year-old rape victim. [1] In his spare time and as a hobby, Grisham began work on his first novel, which explored what would have happened if the girl's father had murdered her assailants. He spent three years on A Time to Kill and finished it in 1987. Initially rejected by many publishers, the manuscript eventually was bought by Wynwood Press, which gave it a modest 5,000-copy printing and published it in June 1988.[1] The day after Grisham completed A Time to Kill, he began work on another novel, the story of a young attorney lured to an apparently perfect law firm that was not what it appeared. That second book, The Firm became the 7th bestselling novel of 1991. [3] Grisham then went on to produce at least one work a year, most of them widely popular bestsellers. Beginning with A Painted House in 2001, the author broadened his focus from law to the more general rural south, all the while continuing to pen his legal thrillers. Publishers Weekly declared Grisham "the bestselling novelist of the 90s," selling a total of 60,742,289 copies. He is also one of only two authors to sell two million copies on a first printing (Tom Clancy is the other). Grisham's 1992 novel The Pelican Brief sold 11,232,480 copies in the United States alone.
The Mississippi State University Libraries, Manuscript Division, maintains the John Grisham Room," an archive containing materials generated during the author's tenure as Mississippi State Representative and relating to his writings. Grisham's lifelong passion for baseball is evident in his novel A Painted House and in his support of Little League activities in both Oxford, Mississippi and Charlottesville, Virginia. He wrote the original screenplay for and produced the baseball movie Mickey, starring Harry Connick, Jr.. The movie was released on DVD in April 2004. [4] He remains a fan of Mississippi State University's baseball team and wrote about his ties to the university and the Left Field Lounge in the introduction for the book "Dudy Noble Field- A Celebration of MSU Baseball". Grisham is also well known within the literary community for his efforts to support the continuing literary tradition of his native South. Grisham has endowed scholarships and writer's residencies in the University of Mississippi's English Department and Graduate Creative Writing Program, and was the founding publisher of the Oxford American, a 'slick' magazine devoted to literary writing and famous for its annual music issue, copies of which include a compilation CD featuring contemporary and classic Southern musicians in genres ranging from blues and gospel to country-western and alternative rock. In an October 2006 interview on the Charlie Rose talk show, Grisham stated that he usually takes only six months to write a book and that his favorite author was John le Carré. Grisham describes himself as a "moderate Baptist", and he has performed mission service for his church, notably in Brazil. He lives with his wife, Renée, (née Jones) and their two children, Ty and Shea. The family splits their time between their Victorian home on a farm outside Oxford, Mississippi and a plantation near Charlottesville, Virginia. BooksFictionImage:Grishamshelf.jpg A shelf of John Grisham's books
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da:John Grisham de:John Grisham es:John Grisham fr:John Grisham it:John Grisham he:ג'ון גרישם hu:John Grisham nl:John Grisham ja:ジョン・グリシャム no:John Grisham nds:John Grisham pl:John Grisham pt:John Grisham ro:John Grisham ru:Гришэм, Джон sq:John Grisham simple:John Grisham sk:John Grisham fi:John Grisham sv:John Grisham ar:جون غريشام
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