John Ray Grisham Jr. (/ˈɡrɪʃəm/; born February 8, 1955)[1][2] is an American novelist, lawyer, and former member of the Mississippi House of Representatives, known for his best-selling legal thrillers.

According to the American Academy of Achievement, Grisham has written 37 consecutive number-one fiction bestsellers, and his books have sold 300 million copies worldwide.

[8] Seven of his other novels have also been adapted into films: The Chamber, The Client, A Painted House, The Pelican Brief, The Rainmaker, The Runaway Jury, and Skipping Christmas.

[12] He credits his 12th grade English teacher, Frances McGuffey, for inspiring his love for reading and for introducing him to the works of John Steinbeck in particular.

[12] He and two close friends, Bubba Logan and Parker Pickle, transferred to Delta State University in Cleveland where Grisham hoped to revive his baseball career as a walk on player, but he was cut from the team and he left school after one semester.

[1] Although he started there as an economics major, he eventually graduated from Mississippi State University in 1977 with a Bachelor of Science in accounting after being inspired by a fellow student, a Vietnam veteran, who planned to go to law school.

[12][15] He later enrolled in the University of Mississippi School of Law intending to become a tax lawyer, but his interest shifted to general civil litigation.

[20] Grisham's writing career blossomed with the success of his second book, The Firm, and he gave up practicing law, except for returning briefly in 1996 to represent the family of a railroad worker who was killed on the job.

"[10] Although he failed English in community college, Grisham received praise for his writing while taking a business correspondence course during law school.

[22] A feature film version of The Pelican Brief starring Julia Roberts and Denzel Washington was released later that year and grossed $195 million.

[23] Following their success, Regency Enterprises paid Grisham $2.25 million for the rights to The Client which was released in 1994 starring Susan Sarandon and Tommy Lee Jones.

Universal Pictures then commissioned Grisham with the highest amount ever for an unpublished novel, paying $3.75 million for the rights to The Chamber.

In August 1994, New Regency paid a record $6 million for the rights to A Time to Kill, with Grisham asking for a guarantee that Joel Schumacher, the director of The Client, would direct.

[24] Beginning with A Painted House, Grisham broadened his focus from law to the more general rural South but continued to write legal thrillers at the rate of one per year.

He wrote the original screenplay for and produced the 2004 baseball movie Mickey, which starred Harry Connick Jr.[25] In 2005, Grisham received the Peggy V. Helmerich Distinguished Author Award, which is presented annually by the Tulsa Library Trust.

They feature Theodore Boone, a 13-year-old who gives his classmates legal advice on a multitude of scenarios, ranging from rescuing impounded dogs to helping their parents prevent their house from being repossessed.

"[27] In an October 2006 interview on the Charlie Rose show, Grisham stated that he usually takes only six months to write a book, and his favorite author is John le Carré.

[36] The book appeared at the top of several best seller lists including USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times.

The Rooster Bar, published on October 24, 2017, was called "his most original work yet", in The News Herald,[37] and a “buoyant, mischievous thriller” in The New York Times.

[42] In 1993, he created with his wife a foundation, entirely financed by his royalties, which contributes to Baptist missionaries in Brazil for the purchase of medicines and the construction of chapels, clinics and schools.

[43] Grisham has a lifelong passion for baseball, demonstrated partly by his support of Little League activities in both Oxford, Mississippi, and in Charlottesville.

[45] Since moving to the Charlottesville area, Grisham has become a supporter of Virginia Cavaliers athletics and is regularly seen sitting courtside at basketball games.

[46] Grisham also contributed to a $1.2 million donation to the Cavalier baseball team in Charlottesville, Virginia, which was used in the 2002 renovation of Davenport Field.

[48] Grisham is a member of the board of directors of the Innocence Project, which campaigns to free and exonerate unjustly convicted people on the basis of DNA evidence.

[58][59] He went on to clarify that he was defending a former friend from law school who was caught in a sting thinking he was looking at adult porn but it was in reality sixteen- and seventeen-year-old minors and went on to add, "I have no sympathy for real pedophiles.

[65] In his 2018 Fall Convocation address to new students, Grisham described Mississippi State University as a place where he felt at home, noting, "I loved the big lecture halls, and I came to enjoy the professors.