Ford County, by John Grisham
By Peter on Apr 4, 2010 in Excellent book, John Grisham, Short stories, Thriller, bestseller, book review
John Grisham is a world renowned writer of legal thrillers. He is also a 
Ford County is John Grisham’s first collection of short stories. It has been said that they are based on seven plots he had developed, but that were not good enough to merit a full book each. They could also have been based on observations or notes collected over time. I don’t know and don’t need to know.
What I do know is that all of the stories are extremely charming and feel very much like tales from real life. They are tales of people that see opportunities and go for them, tales about people dealing with fear of the unknown, and tales of lives lived on the fringe. And they are all tales told without twists and turns, told almost in straight lines from start to finish.
Reading it I almost felt like I was in Ford County. In that fictional town of Clanton where the book is set – a Southern version of Smalltown, USA; a town with 10,000 souls and 50 or so lawyers – mostly in shabby offices, most of them waiting for the one big case that will land the pot of gold in their corner.
Some of the characters are a little weird. And some of the tales perhaps a little far-fetched. But that aside, this really is a little beauty of a book. It more or less glued me to my chair. The stores are elegantly told – no frills, no attempts to show off – and more or less delivered as seven arrows straight off the string. As they are short stories the suspense is not as intense as in some of his best thrillers, but the characterizations, the descriptions, the stories themselves are so great that instead you feel joy and at times a little stunned. And the stories are told with a wry humor I think I have only seen before in Grisham’s writing in the novel Playing for Pizza
“Blood Drive,” the opening story, sets the tone nicely. A local named Bailey has been injured in a construction accident in Memphis, and Bailey needs blood donors. But nobody knows exactly what happened. Or what he was doing. His mother always said he was an assistant foreman, but he turns out to have been a mason’s helper instead. Regardless – now he needs blood. And three guys volunteer to drive up to the big city of Memphis to donate blood. On the way down there Grisham lands the three guys in so much trouble that Bailey emerges as they least scathed guy! And when they arrive after this eventful journey, they don’t know which of the ten hospitals in town Bailey is in. Nor do they know whether Bailey is his first or last name.
Among the other stories – “Fetching Raymond”, “Fish Files”, “Casino”, “Michael’s Room”, “Quiet Haven” and “Funny Boy” – “Quiet Haven” was the one the fascinated me the most. It is a very dark and sneaky story, but quite funny at times too. Early on you start to wonder why a young guy with post-graduate education wants to work in nursing homes for six dollars an hour. And why it is that he changes jobs so often? There is obviously something fishy. But what? Meet a pro scam artist!
Another wonderful story is “Funny Boy” – about a man who returns to his home city from San Francisco with AIDS. And who is rejected by his family and is instead cared for by an elderly Afro-American lady. This is a very quiet, serious, heart-breaking yet beautiful story.
To me it was very interesting to see these delightful short stories from John Grisham, a writer many have said can’t write, just tells those intense thrillers. I am reminded of Jeffrey Archer, another writer who has written great bestsellers – a series of them, actually – but who also is such an excellent writer of short stories. Let me also say – I loved the titles of the stories – very nice all of them. Ford County is one of Grisham’s best books so far – perhaps even the best. A great read!
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