Reviews
"The decision to bomb the office of the radical Jew lawyer was reached with relative ease." So begins Grisham's legal leviathan The Chamber, a 676-page tome that scrutinizes the death penalty and all of its nuances--from racially motivated murder to the cruel and unusual effects of a malfunctioning gas chamber.
Adam Hall is a 26-year-old attorney, fresh out of law school and working at the best firm in Chicago. He might have been humming Timbuk 3's big hit, "The Future's So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades," if it wasn't for his psychotic Southern grandfather, Sam Cayhall. Cayhall, a card-carrying member of the KKK, is on death row for killing two men. Knowing his uncle will surely die without his legal expertise, Hall comes to the rescue and puts his dazzling career at stake, while digging up a barnyard of skeletons from his family's past. Grisham fans expecting the typical action-packed plot should ready themselves for a slower pace, well-fleshed-out characters, and heavy doses of sentimentalism.
Amazon.com Audiobook Review
At first listen, the narration of this abridged version of John Grisham's The Chamber seems flat and uninvolved. But Michael Beck has chosen his vocal style well, purposely eschewing unnecessary adornment and allowing this searing indictment of racism and murder to unfold on its own terms. Beck uses character voices sparingly, adding subtle emphasis to the already charged plot. The story begins with a Klan-sponsored bombing and then traces a trail of rigged acquittals stretching over three decades, until a young lawyer with secrets of his own brings the case to a powerful conclusion. (Running time: 6 hours, 4 cassettes) --George Laney
From Publishers Weekly
Tie-in edition with the forthcoming movie starring Gene Hackman and Faye Dunaway. Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
It's a foregone conclusion that Grisham's latest novel will be a best-seller, but now that he doesn't have to worry about making money, he's apparently decided to flex his literary muscles with a tale of death-row inmate Sam Cayhall and his lawyer-grandson Adam Hall. Grisham's reputation as a writer of lawyer espionage novels is well known, but he is equally adept at fleshing out characters of the modern South. We begin in 1967, when Mississippian and Klan member Cayhall helps bomb a Jewish lawyer's office and mistakenly kills the attorney's two young sons. Two trials with all-white juries wind up in mistrials, but eventually the intelligent Sam is convicted in 1981 and sentenced to the gas-chamber. By 1990, Adam, who has never met Sam, agrees to file his final appeals shortly before the execution. Like The Firm and other Grisham books, the plot is centered on a race against time, but there is little hint of cloak-and-dagger; in addition, a subplot that could exonerate Sam is, inexplicably, never developed. Grisham asserts that most prison officials are against the death penalty, or at least the gas chamber method, and he provides gruesome details of executions gone wrong. As usual, the dialogue is fast paced, witty, and screenplay-ready, and only near the end does it become mawkish in the midst of self-examination and tearful good-byes. Most ironic, however, is that Grisham fans will eat up this rather uncommercial tale. Joe Collins
Review
"Mesmerizing... with an authority and originality... and with a grasp of literary complexity that makes Scott Turow's novel's pale by comparison -- Grisham returns." -- San Francisco Chronicle.
"A dark and thoughtful tale pulsing with moral uncertainties... Grisham is at his best." --People.
"Compelling... Powerful... The Chamber will make readers think long and hard about the death penalty." -- USA Today.
"His best yet." -- The Houston Post.
From the Hardcover edition.
Review
"Mesmerizing... with an authority and originality... and with a grasp of literary complexity that makes Scott Turow's novel's pale by comparison -- Grisham returns." -- San Francisco Chronicle.
"A dark and thoughtful tale pulsing with moral uncertainties... Grisham is at his best." --People.
"Compelling... Powerful... The Chamber will make readers think long and hard about the death penalty." -- USA Today.
"His best yet." -- The Houston Post.
From the Hardcover edition.
Book Description
In the corridors of Chicago's top law firm: Twenty-six-year-old Adam Hall stands on the brink of a brilliant legal career. Now he is risking it all for a death-row killer and an impossible case. Maximum Security Unit, Mississippi State Prison: Sam Cayhall is a former Klansman and unrepentant racist now facing the death penalty for a fatal bombing in 1967. He has run out of chances -- except for one: the young, liberal Chicago lawyer who just happens to be his grandson. While the executioners prepare the gas chamber, while the protesters gather and the TV cameras wait, Adam has only days, hours, minutes to save his client. For between the two men is a chasm of shame, family lies, and secrets -- including the one secret that could save Sam Cayhall's life...or cost Adam his. "A dark and thoughtful tale pulsing wit moral uncertainties... Grisham is at his best." --People. "Compelling... Powerful... The Chamber will make readers think long and hard about the death penalty." -- USA Today. "His best yet." -- The Houston Post. "Mesmerizing... with an authority and originality... and with a grasp of literary complexity that makes Scott Turow's novels pale by comparison -- Grisham returns." -- San Francisco Chronicle.
From the Publisher
In the corridors of Chicago's top law firm:
Twenty-six-year-old Adam Hall stands on the brink of a brilliant legal career. Now he is risking it all for a death-row killer and an impossible case.
Maximum Security Unit, Mississippi State Prison:
Sam Cayhall is a former Klansman and unrepentant racist now facing the death penalty for a fatal bombing in 1967. He has run out of chances -- except for one: the young, liberal Chicago lawyer who just happens to be his grandson. While the executioners prepare the gas chamber, while the protesters gather and the TV cameras wait, Adam has only days, hours, minutes to save his client. For between the two men is a chasm of shame, family lies, and secrets -- including the one secret that could save Sam Cayhall's life...or cost Adam his.
"A dark and thoughtful tale pulsing wit moral uncertainties... Grisham is at his best." --People.
"Compelling... Powerful... The Chamber will make readers think long and hard about the death penalty." -- USA Today.
"His best yet." -- The Houston Post.
"Mesmerizing... with an authority and originality... and with a grasp of literary complexity that makes Scott Turow's novels pale by comparison -- Grisham returns." -- San Francisco Chronicle.
From the Inside Flap
In the corridors of Chicago's top law firm:
Twenty-six-year-old Adam Hall stands on the brink of a brilliant legal career. Now he is risking it all for a death-row killer and an impossible case.
Maximum Security Unit, Mississippi State Prison:
Sam Cayhall is a former Klansman and unrepentant racist now facing the death penalty for a fatal bombing in 1967. He has run out of chances -- except for one: the young, liberal Chicago lawyer who just happens to be his grandson. While the executioners prepare the gas chamber, while the protesters gather and the TV cameras wait, Adam has only days, hours, minutes to save his client. For between the two men is a chasm of shame, family lies, and secrets -- including the one secret that could save Sam Cayhall's life...or cost Adam his.
"A dark and thoughtful tale pulsing wit moral uncertainties... Grisham is at his best." --People.
"Compelling... Powerful... The Chamber will make readers think long and hard about the death penalty." -- USA Today.
"His best yet." -- The Houston Post.
"Mesmerizing... with an authority and originality... and with a grasp of literary complexity that makes Scott Turow's novels pale by comparison -- Grisham returns." -- San Francisco Chronicle.
The Chamber ANNOTATION
The author of the number-one bestsellers The Firm, The Pelican Brief and The Client has written another spellbinding tale of legal intrigue sure to hit bestseller lists this summer. Twenty-two years after the bombing deaths of a civil rights activist's two sons, the Klansman on death row for their murders is mysteriously aided in his last appeal by a young lawyer in a major firm. But why?
FROM THE PUBLISHER
In 1967 in Greenville, Mississippi, known Klan member Sam Cayhall is accused of bombing the law offices of Jewish civil rights activist Marvin Kramer, killing Kramer's two sons. Cayhall's first trial, with an all-white jury and a Klan rally outside the courthouse, ends in a hung jury; the retrial six months later has the same outcome. Twelve years later an ambitious district attorney in Greenville reopens the case. Much has changed since 1967, and this time, with a jury of eight whites and four blacks, Cayhall is convicted. He is transferred to the state penitentiary at Parchman to await execution on death row. In 1990, in the huge Chicago law firm of Kravitz & Bane, a young lawyer named Adam Hall asks to work on the Cayhall case, which the firm has handled on a pro bono basis for years. But the case is all but lost and time is running out: within weeks Sam Cayhall will finally go to the gas chamber. Why in the world would Adam want to get involved?
FROM THE CRITICS
Walter Goodman
So, let's begin with a word of reassurance. If you find your fingers racing through these 486 pages, it may signify merely that few of them demand close study. And as for putting the book down, I managed to do it without pain a score of times....Mr. Grisham has no pretensions to being a stylist. As with most other popular novels, the language does not bear inspection. Its main function is to deliver information, and you don't have to read absolutely every word, because all significant facts are repeated, usually more than once. Everything is made explicit; one's imagination is never imposed on. -- New York Times
Publishers Weekly
Tie-in edition with the forthcoming movie starring Gene Hackman and Faye Dunaway. (Oct)
Library Journal
Grisham aims for another best-seller (and a movie?) with a tale that hinges on the bombing of civil rights advocate Marvin Kramer's offices in 1967. His two sons are killed, and Klansman Sam Cayhall is convicted. Some 22 years later, as Cayhall approaches execution, a hot young lawyer asks to defend him.
BookList - Joe Collins
It's a foregone conclusion that Grisham's latest novel will be a best-seller, but now that he doesn't have to worry about making money, he's apparently decided to flex his literary muscles with a tale of death-row inmate Sam Cayhall and his lawyer-grandson Adam Hall. Grisham's reputation as a writer of lawyer espionage novels is well known, but he is equally adept at fleshing out characters of the modern South. We begin in 1967, when Mississippian and Klan member Cayhall helps bomb a Jewish lawyer's office and mistakenly kills the attorney's two young sons. Two trials with all-white juries wind up in mistrials, but eventually the intelligent Sam is convicted in 1981 and sentenced to the gas-chamber. By 1990, Adam, who has never met Sam, agrees to file his final appeals shortly before the execution. Like "The Firm" and other Grisham books, the plot is centered on a race against time, but there is little hint of cloak-and-dagger; in addition, a subplot that could exonerate Sam is, inexplicably, never developed. Grisham asserts that most prison officials are against the death penalty, or at least the gas chamber method, and he provides gruesome details of executions gone wrong. As usual, the dialogue is fast paced, witty, and screenplay-ready, and only near the end does it become mawkish in the midst of self-examination and tearful good-byes. Most ironic, however, is that Grisham fans will eat up this rather uncommercial tale.
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