Thrive: 30 Inspirational Rags-to-Riches Stories

John Grisham

John Grisham was born in Jonesboro, Arkansas. The second eldest of five siblings, John's father was a construction worker and cotton farmer, and his mother was a homemaker. When he was four years old, John's family travelled around the South before settling in Southaven, DeSoto County, Mississippi. During his teenage years, John held a series of jobs, including mowing lawns, watering rose bushes at a nursery, laying chain-link fences, and working on a highway asphalt crew. He also worked as a "helper" for a plumbing contractor, where he crawled underneath houses, covered in sweat and mud, digging with a shovel until he discovered the problem. He often held his breath to the point of almost fainting. During his freshman year of college, John worked at Sears selling men's underwear, but quit when a corporate spy, posing as a customer, repeatedly caught him insulting customers.

For the first couple of years in college, John drifted. He thought about becoming a high-powered tax attorney, representing wealthy people who wanted to avoid paying taxes. He knew nothing about tax and did not know anyone who was wealthy. He ultimately attended three colleges before graduating with an accounting degree from Mississippi State University. He enrolled at the University of Mississippi School of Law to become a tax lawyer, until he took his first course in tax law. He was stunned by the complexity and barely passed the course. At the same time, John was involved in a few mock trial classes and realized he enjoyed practicing law in the courtroom. His plan of becoming a tax lawyer was discarded overnight, and John created a new career plan. He would return to his hometown, start his own firm, and become a hotshot trial attorney. As planned, John graduated from law school, with no job offers, and returned to his hometown.

At the time, there was no system for assigning a public defender in Southaven. For criminals, the judge appointed whatever attorneys happened to be in the courtroom that day. Essentially, the young attorneys took the low-paying cases after the more experienced attorneys got the better clients. John volunteered for all of the work he could get. He often felt bad for his clients, who were in trouble and depended on him, a rookie attorney. At the same time, while his law office was struggling, John ran for and won a House seat in the Mississippi State Legislature. He was twenty-eight years old. His salary was $8,000 per year, which was a lot more than he had earned his first year of practicing law.

John spent the first three months of each year at the state capitol in Jackson, Mississippi, hearing court cases. Like most small-town lawyers, John was dreaming of the big case, the big verdict, the big trial where a law career is made. One day, he overheard the testimony of a twelve-year-old victim who had been beaten and raped. Her testimony was "gut-wrenching, graphic, heartbreaking, and riveting," according to John. Every juror was crying, and John remembers staring at the defendant wishing he had a gun. Suddenly, John became inspired. He never thought about writing professionally before, but a story formed in his mind over the following weeks. He thought of little else, but didn't know where to begin. At thirty-five years old, John took out his legal pad one evening and wrote Chapter One at the top, and the journey began.

John knew he had to write at least one page a day; otherwise, the book would go nowhere. He got into the habit of writing during early mornings, showing up at the office at 5:30 a.m. each day. As a result, people started talking about how hard he worked. Although he was doing sixty- to seventy-hour workweeks, his colleagues did not know he was also writing a novel. A Time to Kill was finished, from concept to finish, within three years. The book was rejected by twenty-eight publishers before Wynwood Press, a then-unknown publisher, gave it a modest 5,000-copy printing. It didn't sell. Disappointed, as his dream to become a full-time writer was delayed, John convinced himself to write one more book. This time, he was going to write a book with a much broader appeal in a much faster time.

John remembered a friend of his, back in law school, who was a top student and heavily recruited by law firms in the area. He recalled speaking with his friend after one particular interview, who described the firm as the kind of place where once you join, it was almost as if you never leave, like it was owned by the Mafia. The idea stuck. John wrote the book in courtrooms, during early mornings, late in the office, whenever he had the chance to write. He titled it The Firm, a story about a hotshot young attorney who joins a law firm that showers him with money and gifts, which he later finds out is owned by the Mafia. He sent it to his agent, who shopped it around to book publishers. Nobody was interested.

Without John's knowing, someone in a copy room made a bootlegged copy of his manuscript and sold it, presumably to a talent scout. The talent scout then made his way around Hollywood, claiming to represent John, and shopped his manuscript around to the major movie production companies. Out of the blue, John received a call from his literary agent, who informed him they sold the movie rights for The Firm to Paramount Pictures for $600,000. After the movie deal was complete, all of the major book publishing companies, which were initially not interested, fought over the publishing rights for his book. The Firm was published by Random House in 1991 and sold over 1.5 million copies in two years. It was also the best-selling book of 1991. After ten years of practicing law, at forty-one years old, John was finally able to quit his job and focus on writing full-time. John Grisham has published twenty-nine novels that have sold over 275 million copies worldwide. Some of his novels include A Painted House, The Runaway Jury, The Chamber, The Rainmaker, Skipping Christmas, and The Pelican Brief.