The Associate by John Grisham

If you like Grisham’s earliest works (the Firm, the Pelican Brief, etc.) you’ll almost certainly like this one too. Similarities between John Grisham’s latest book, The Associate, and his previous best seller, The Firm, are unavoidable.
With 20 novels and one work of non-fiction, Grisham has returned to trademark territory with his newest book.
Dipping us into the pitiless world of corporate law and the underhand dealings of the people working within it, Grisham has created a story that is just begging to be brought to life on the big screen.
As I was reading The Associate, the irritating image of Tom Cruise (Grisham’s hero from The Firm) popped into my head. In fact, Grisham’s descriptions of McAvoy and most other characters never really gelled with me, hence I found it difficult to build a mental picture of the main players.
The Associate is a novel about a brilliant young law student who wonders everyone with his choice of the law firm where he is to train. What we know, though his friends don’t, is that he has been tempted there by dark forces. While at college, our hero was a senior editor at the Yale Law Journal. Kyle McAvoy would also have been a college basketball star if he had not injured his knee. The firm he joins is ruled with maximising the number of billable hours charged by each trainee. After joining, he is asked to thieve information from client’s files. This is difficult because of high levels of security. Furthermore, it’s dangerous because he could lose his job. His room is bugged and his movements monitored. However, the bad guys are never quite sure how much he knows about this. Eventually, the FBI becomes involved. But our hero has an ambiguous relationship with the bureau, preferring to run things his own way.
It is charming reading about the corporate greed of the American legal system. The mammoth hours and outrageous billing amounts put in by “grunt” associates will stun you, while the partners and company CEO’s cream the privileges and the profits. Grisham has completed amazing success by writing contrived novels about dodgy dealings in the legal world. However, he has increased his horizons. He published his first book of nonfiction, “The Innocent Man,” a serious look at a failure of justice in Oklahoma.
More than most of his recent legal novels, “The Associate” turns on a attraction: Grisham is well aware that the danger to young men like Kyle McAvoy is not that a Bennie will chantage them but that big money will corrupt them. However, it’s Bennie and the chantage and the rape story that will make the book a huge success. “The Associate” is a stunning portrait of the big-bucks legal world. The only greatly respected lawyer we meet is Kyle’s father, a small-town practitioner who is beloved by his clients and hates that his son is profaning his talents in New York. For Grisham, who started out as a small-town lawyer himself, that’s Eden, a paradise where decent men and women do honest work and even pursue a dream of justice. Grisham knows and loves that world; one can only hope he’ll return to it more often.
Enjoy!

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