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John Grisham was born on February 8th in 1955 in Jonesboro, Arkansas. He was raised in a family of five children. During his youth he moved around a lot because his father was a construction worker. They lived in many different places, for example in Crenshaw, Mississippi. Finally the Grisham family settled in Southaven, a little town outside Memphis, when he was twelve and then he started studying at the Southaven High School.
During his school years he was an athlete and he wanted to play either professional football or baseball. This interest of his made him go to study at the Northwest Mississippi Junior College in 1973. At the Northwest he played baseball for a year and he really did not care for his grades, he just wanted to play baseball. Grisham moved to the Delta State University after a year at Northwest to improve his skills in baseball. At the Delta State University he found out that he really was not meant to be a baseball player and so he decided to concentrate on his studies, which he had not done before. So he moved once again, this time to the Mississippi State University (1975). John Grisham really liked the Mississippi State University and he started studying for an accounting major. Since he could not become a professional baseball player anymore he now thought of becoming a tax lawyer. Grisham graduated from the Mississippi State University in 1977 with an accounting major. After studying at the Mississippi State University he went to law-school at the University of Mississippi, from which he graduated in 1981. In the same year as he graduated from law-school he married Renee Jones.
John Grisham was now a lawyer and he got himself an office in Southaven where he practised criminal and civil law. He was also politically engaged at this time and in 1983 he was elected to the Mississippi House of Representatives. During his time at Mississippi State University he had started on two books, none of them were ever finished. In 1984 he started writing a third. This time he finished it. The original title of the book was Deathknell, but the publisher did not like that so he changed it to A Time to Kill. In April 1987 three agents called and the year after, in 1988 the book was sold to Wynwood Press. A year after it was published and 5,000 copies were printed. During these years he had been writing his second book, the Firm, which was finished in 1988. In the same year he started writing on his third book, The Pelican Brief. The Firm was then his big hit. It was the book that made him famous. In 1990 he left the House of Representatives and moved from Southaven to a farm outside Oxford.
Today he lives in Charlottesville, Virginia with his wife Renee and his two kids Ty and Shea. Grisham writes six months a year and coaches his son`s Little League team the other half. He only gives a few interviews a year and he has said that he hates reviews. John Grisham just wants to write books and live peacefully and undisturbed with his family.
His books
The Time To Kill (1986)
The Firm (1988)
A Pelican Brief (1992)
The Chamber (1993)
The Rainmaker (1995)
The Runaway Jury (1996)
The Partner (1997)
The Street Lawyer (1998)
Ever since he wrote the Pelican Brief Grisham has published a book a year with the same result. It should be said that all his books have been best-sellers and that six of them have become movies (The Client, The Pelican Brief, The Firm, The Time to Kill, The Chamber and The Rainmaker). John Grisham has also written the script to the movie the Gingerbread Man and a script to a baseball movie.
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