The University of Alabama School of Law and the American Bar Association Journal announced today that best-selling author John Grisham has been awarded the inaugural Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction for his novel, “The Confession.”Marking the 50th anniversary of the publication of Harper Lee’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, “To Kill a Mockingbird,” the Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction will be awarded annually “to a published work of fiction that best exemplifies the positive role of lawyers in society and their power to effect change.”
The prize, which was initiated last year in Tuscaloosa by U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, is a way of honoring Lee, a former UA law student, for the “role model she created for the legal professional and for the extraordinary cultural phenomenon that her novel has become.”
“To Kill a Mockingbird,” first published in 1960, is narrated by the young daughter of a small town, Alabama lawyer, who is tasked with defending a black man wrongly accused of assaulting a white woman. Her father, Atticus Finch, is widely regarded as one of the foremost heroes in American literature and as a model of integrity and morality. The book won the Pulitzer Prize and is considered an American literary classic.
Grisham’s “The Confession” was published in 2010 by Doubleday and is about an innocent man who is arrested for the murder of a high school cheerleader. The novel was selected for the Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction by the prize’s 2011 Selection Committee. The members of the committee were David Baldacci, Linda Fairstein, Robert Grey, Morris Dees and Jeffrey Toobin. The committee felt that “The Confession” deserved the prize because it “explores an attorney’s tireless efforts to save his client from being executed for a crime he did not commit.”
In conjuction with the Library of Congress National Book Festival, Grisham will be presented with the award on Sept. 22 during a ceremony at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. Grisham will also receive a signed copy of “To Kill a Mockingbird” from Harper Lee.
Grisham has written dozens of books over the years and most of them involve lawyers and the legal profession. What follows is a complete list of his books in order of publication.
· A Time to Kill (1989)
· The Firm (1991)
· The Pelican Brief (1992)
· The Client (1993)
· The Chamber (1994)
· The Rainmaker (1995)
· The Runaway Jury (1996)
· The Partner (1997)
· The Street Lawyer (1998)
· The Testament (1999)
· The Brethren (2000)
· A Painted House (2001)
· Skipping Christmas (2001)
· The Summons (2002)
· The King of Torts (2003)
· Bleachers (2003)
· The Last Juror (2004)
· The Broker (2005)
· The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town (2006)
· Playing for Pizza (2007)
· The Appeal (2008)
· The Associate (2009)
· Ford County (2009)
· Theodore Boone: Kid Lawyer (2010)
· The Confession (2010)
· Theodore Boone: The Abduction (2011)
In the end, how many of Grisham’s books have you had a chance to read? Which did you like or dislike? Which would you recommend and why? Let us know in the comments section below.
Must be an enjoyable read The King of Torts by John Grisham. loved the way you wrote it. I find your review very genuine and orignal, this book is going in by "to read" list.
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