Art Ayty
Art Ayty
Art Ayty
The book
Title: The King of Torts ISBN: 0-385-50804-2
Publisher: Doubleday
Pages: 384
Year of publication: 2003
The Author
Name: John Grisham Nationality: United States of America
Date of Birth: 8th of February, 1955
John Grisham, the second oldest of five siblings, was born in Jonesboro, Arkansas. In
1977, Grisham received a Bachelor of Science degree in accounting from Mississippi
State University. In 1983, Grisham was elected as a Democrat to the Mississippi House
of Representatives, where he served until 1990. During his time as a legislator, he
continued his private law practice in Southaven. In 1984, at the DeSoto County
courthouse in Hernando, Grisham witnessed the harrowing testimony of a 12-year-old
rape victim. According to Grisham's official website, Grisham used his spare time to
begin work on his first novel, which "explored what would have happened if the girl's
father had murdered her assailants. He spent three years on A Time to Kill and finished
it in 1987. Initially rejected by many publishers, the manuscript was eventually bought
by Wynwood Press, who gave it a modest 5,000-copy printing and published it in June
1989. The day after Grisham completed A Time to Kill, he began work on another novel,
the story of a young attorney lured to an apparently perfect law firm that was not what
it appeared. That second book, The Firm, became the 7th bestselling novel of 1991.
Grisham then produced at least one work a year, nearly all of which became very
popular bestsellers. He authored seven number-one bestselling novels of the year
(1994, 1995, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2002, and 2005).
Motivation
The primary reason why I decided to read this book, is that I am a great fan of thrillers
and John Grisham is a very well-known author, famous because of his thriller novels. I
have read many of his books, so the decision for this book was a logic one. But this time
I had to do it in English, which I thought, shouldnt be that much of a problem.
I would defenitly recommend this book to another person. It is so well-written and the
story is just so good. I really wanted to know what was going to happen next. I couldnt
stop reading. A small problem is that the choice of words by the writer might be a bit
difficult, so some people will need a dictionary in order to keep up with the story.
Part B
1. Explain the title of your book
The King of Torts stands for the king of mass claims. The main character in this books
starts of as a poor lawyer and develops himself to a mass claim master lawyer, with one
of the most successful big law businesses in the US.
relationship with a rich Gorgian model to make Rebecca jealious. After a while,
everything falls apart. A settlement that he arranged for the victims of a medicine called
Dyloft appeared to be not adequate enough, because the side-effects of the medicine is
way more severe then the settlement could cover. He has to pay now. Also the
government comes sniffing around about Max Pace, who appears to have used Clay as a
pion in order to trade at the stocks with the knowledge that Clay would sue certain
companies. Now multiple claims fail and Clay loses alot of money. His accountant
warned him about this but Clay was blinded by his own succes. Clay gets beaten up by
a couple of angry ex-employees of a bankrupt company, which was forced to
bankruptcy by Clays ridiculous demands for a settlement. Clay declares himself
bankrupt and leaves the country with his newly retreived girlfriend Rebecca who broke
up with her boyfriend to be with Clay again.
dumps him and his live seems miserable. At the moment Clay starts to earn alot of
money, he becomes ambitious and starts of his own company with his friends from the
Office of the Public Defender. But Clay starts to loose grip on reality. He starts to meet
Patton Fench, another mass claim lawyer, and Patton teaches him everything about
being a succesful mass claim lawyer. Clay does what he was thought and makes even
more money despite the risks. Clay falls eventually from his statue and is brought
with a hard bang back into the real world. He realises that he made wrong decisions and
tries to fix everything. He loses most of his money but gets eventually his girlfriend
Rebecca back.