A Painted House by John Grisham

Born on February 8, 1955 in Jonesboro, Arkansas John Grisham dreamed of being a professional baseball player. After realizing he didn’t have the right skills for a pro career he shifted gears and majored in accounting at Mississippi State University. He then graduated from law school at Ole Miss and practiced law in Southaven for nearly a decade. In 1983 he was elected to the state House of Representatives and served until 1990. After overhearing the testimony of a 12 year old rape victim he was inspired to start a novel exploring what might have happened if the child’s father had murdered her assailants, which became the novel A Time to Kill. Grisham took time off from writing in 1996 to return to the courtroom. He was honoring a commitment made before he had retired from law to become a full time writer. Grisham lives with his wife Renee and their two children Ty and Shea. The family splits their time between their Victorian home on a farm in Mississippi and a plantation near Cha...