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A Time to Kill by John Grisham

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jonssweater's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.0

THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS THROUGHOUT

My advice: just watch the film. In the live action adaptation, Jake Brigance is genuinely a likeable protagonist. Having to wade through the perspective of a self-important, hypocritical, fame-hungry misogynistic lawyer could have been an interesting critique of enforcers of the judicial system, but the framing of Brigance as an entirely unfeeling, apathetic, untouchable white saviour who does as he pleases and twists the law he supposedly upholds to make his ends is unsavoury and droll to read in my opinion (especially for a book that runs for over five hundred pages).

The treatment of female characters in this book is abysmal and eye-roll-worthy; Brigance constantly berating and mocking his secretary Ethel, causing her to cry and making inappropriate comments about her chest; the same patriarchal leering he ascribes to Ellen (despite being a married man with a child) as he lusts after her and has the gall to resent her for being a self-important tease, so to speak; as well as demanding the list of jurors for the trial (a crime) and reprimanding Jean Gillespie for doing her duty as a secretary and not giving into his self-serving demands.

Here’s a fun example of Brigance’s bigotry that were be nearly comical if it weren’t treated in such a blasé fashion: “‘Because men don’t have female friends. No way. I don’t know of a single man in the entire South who is married and has a female friend. I think it goes back to the Civil War.’
‘I think t goes back to the Dark Ages. Why are Southern Women so jealous?’
‘Because that’s the way we’ve trained them. They learned from us. If my way met a male friend for lunch or dinner, I’d tear his head off and file for divorce. She learned it from me.’
‘That makes absolutely no sense.’
‘Of course it doesn’t.’
‘Your wife has no male friends?’
‘Why would I want female friends? They can’t talk about football, or duck hunting, or politics, or lawsuits, or anything that i want to talk about. They talk about kids, clothes, recipes, coupons, furniture, stuff I know nothing about. No, I don’t have any female friends. Don’t want any.’
‘That’s what I love about the South. The people are so tolerant.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Do you have any Jewish friends?’
‘I don’t know of any in Ford County. I had a real good friend in law school, Ira Tauber, from New Jersey. We were very close. I love Jews. Jesus was a Jew, you know. I’ve never understood anti-Semitism.’
‘’My God, you are a liberal. How about, uh, homosexuals?’
‘I feel sorry for them. They don’t know what they’re missing. But that’s their problem.’
‘Could you have a homosexual friend?’
‘I guess, as long as he didn’t tell me.’
‘Nope, you’re a Republican.’ 

I could write a whole essay about how mind-numbingly dull to read and unnecessarily discriminatory this passage of dialogue between Brigance and Roark is, but for the sake of my general comfort and given the fact that I don’t care enough to point out how blatantly and ridiculously disrespectful this excerpt is – I won’t. I’ll just leave it as it is, and allow anyone reading this review to make their own opinions based upon this unedited piece of wasted words.

It’s easy to read through Jake’s point of view and feel easy in ascribing his miserable temperament and unappealing characteristics to Grisham himself, who I really would prefer to judge as an author here – but his stylisation as an author is also incredibly lacking. Many times while reading, his simplistic prose and tendency to reply upon short sentences grows monotonous. Grisham’s dialogue too deserves criticism for the continuous ambiguity of which character exactly is talking during a scene. A conversation between three characters, for instance, grows confusing and frustrating when every line is one of dialogue that isn’t specified to a particular character. 

It’s clear to me that A Time To Kill, published in 1989, does not exactly stand the test or time (no pun intended). As a piece of literature it’s childishly simple and lacking in every place that counts. Candidly speaking, it becomes a chore to have to sift through. Frankly, I can’t help but feel a twinge of pride for getting through it. My earlier advice remains: just watch the film if you have interest in A Time To Kill, as it is far more entertaining and less aggravating than this read. 
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