By Art Toalston

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)–Best-selling author John Grisham has produced his best
novel in years, at least in the judgment of USA Today book reviewer Deirdre
Donahue.

“The Testament,” released in February and his 10th novel, includes Grisham’s
“trademark legal wrangling, zippy plot and engaging minor characters,” Donahue
writes, “but there’s a fresh energy and a new element.

“God.

“‘The Testament’ is unabashedly spiritual without being doctrinaire,” Donahue
writes. “The major question he explores: What is needed for a man to live a good
and happy life? While characters in previous thrillers have found joy in their
offshore bank accounts, faith in God, not legal loopholes, is Grisham’s new
answer.”

Perhaps not so new, at least for Grisham personally.

Grisham is a 44-year-old Baptist layman who has taught Sunday school to young
couples as well as 4-year-olds. From a theological perspective, he described
himself to USA Today as a “moderate Southern Baptist” — a “minority” within the
convention. From his perspective, he said, “There’s no such thing as a liberal
Southern Baptist.”

But Grisham, the father of two teens, also has developed a heart for
missions, having traveled to Brazil as a volunteer several times in trips
coordinated through the Southern Baptist International Mission Board.

“I started going out in 1993 with a church group from my home church in
Oxford, Miss.,” he told USA Today. “We went down there for the purpose of
constructing a church in this little town sort of in the outback and it was such
a rewarding experience that I’ve done it several times since.”

And despite his wealth — from 110 million books in print, with six of his
novels having been made into movies — Grisham evidences a sense of stewardship.

He and his wife, Renee, “measure the success of the year on how much we give
away,” Grisham told USA Today. They have set up a foundation to oversee their
giving — “the bulk of it goes to church and related activities” — to which “the
kids have said, ‘Look, don’t give it all away.'”

Grisham now wishes “I’d joined the Peace Corps … for a couple years out of
college.” He added, “As my years go by I think I’ll spend more and more time
doing … mission work, probably in Brazil.”

Grisham’s missions experiences surface in The Testament.

Brazil is the setting into which his lead character, Nate O’Reilly, is
thrust. An attorney battered by life in the fast lane, O’Reilly is hired to
search for missionary Rachel Lane, who has been left the bulk of a billionaire’s
fortune. The billionaire has committed suicide and, as a shocker to his six
spoiled children and three ex-wives, he left his wealth to Lane, an illegitimate
daughter none of his greedy clan knew about.

As Grisham explained to USA Today, “Nate tried power and women and booze and
drugs and the fast life and all the good things that money can buy. He’s crashed
and burned four times in 10 years and it’s obvious he can’t save himself. I
wanted to take a guy like that and sort of follow him on a kind of spiritual
journey, his quest for a spiritual cure. … I was challenged by the goal of
seeing if I could make such a spiritual journey work in a popular novel, in
commercial fiction.”

Dale Hanson Bourke, publisher of Religion News Service, writes that Grisham
is “a man of faith who has steadily introduced struggles between good and evil,
materialism and spirituality into his recent novels.”

“In ‘The Testament’ (Doubleday), Grisham has finally tipped the balance
toward a story that is more about faith than law, more a study of grace than
legalism,” Bourke writes. “He has managed to do this in a way that still produces
a ‘good read’ while offering an unabashed introduction to the Christian faith.”

Wayne Hager, pastor of Calvary Baptist Church, Mt. Airy, N.C., reviewing the
book in the “Faithful Reader” column carried by Kentucky Baptist newsjournal,
Western Recorder, noted Grisham “took a turn in his last novel, ‘The Street
Lawyer,’ that signaled his willingness to explore issues of character, faith and
being that flow straight from his Christian faith.”

In The Testament, Hager wrote Grisham “is to be praised for his willingness
to openly have a lead character, in a piece of non-Christian fiction, share the
gospel and then the main character accept it,” though “no confessional statement”
is included in the conversion. The character’s attempts, however, “to make amends
with his children realistically portrays both that redemption is possible and
that there are consequences of sin, even after confession.”

Describing Grisham’s portrayal of the human condition as superb in The
Testament, Hager added, “As entertainment this book is worth the read. As a
testament to God’s saving grace, it is worth passing on to others.”

While CNN’s Larry King described The Testament as containing “the best first
50 pages for pure storytelling impact that I have ever read in a book of fiction”
and USA Today reviewer Donahue said Grisham’s “hordes of fans won’t be
disappointed,” the novel has sparked strong reactions — pro and con — among
readers.

Reader reviews on the Internet bookstore sites of Barnes and Noble and
amazon.com, for example, ranged from “can’t wait until his next one” to “Yawn”
and “Boring.”

Among the various comments:

— “Grisham again hits a home run,” writes a reader on Barnes and Noble’s
website. “The research that goes into his books is extensive and he proves once
again that he is a master storyteller. … I read it in two sittings. Could not
put it down.”

— “This is the last John Grisham novel I will ever buy,” a California reader
declares on the Barnes and Noble website. The reader speculates that “Grisham
chose Brazil as the setting for his book so that he could write off on his income
taxes the vacations he’s taken there.” He complains that Grisham has become “a
Bible-thumpin’ preaching trying to save my … and your … poor, blackened
soul.”

— A South Dakota reader on the Barnes and Noble website expresses
appreciation that Grisham “put Christians (people who believe in God) in a
positive role not as a wacko role.”

— The Testament “seems the most thoughtful and sincere of Grisham’s books
that I have read,” a reader in Poland writes on amazon.com. “In the second half
of the book some very deep-seated beliefs seem to emerge, taking on an almost
mystical quality towards the end.”

— “This book has something for everyone: a tragic death, love, spirituality,
greed and travel,” a Michigan reader writes on amazon.com. “Similar to ‘Out of
Africa’ but only in Brazil with a recovering lawyer on a desperate search for a
hiding missionary woman who has no interest in what many today can’t live
without: money and power.”

— “The characters are poorly developed and flat,” complains a Texas reader
on amazon.com. “They are either evil and greedy, or drunks. Even the protagonist
only changes his ways when he is led to do so, either by his therapist or this
faultless ‘angel’ in the jungle.”

— Grisham, in writing about Brazil, “does well in detailing Brazil and a
culture very few know about,” writes a Minnesota reader on amazon.com, while a
Chicago reader complains it is “long, tedious to read and holds little interest.”

— Of the ending, a California reader on amazon.com writes, “No machinations,
illogical twists or character destructions. It isn’t complicated, it isn’t
perfectly happy or sad, just satisfying — much more realistic.”

— A community college student on the Barnes and Noble website enthuses, “I
never use to read until I cracked open a Grisham novel a few years ago. This is
his best yet!”

[Baptist Press 18 March 1999]