You know that feeling when you want the book you’re reading to never end, even though you can’t wait to see what happens? I’ve just read Sycamore Row (2013) and it had me in tears as well as laughing out loud. John Grisham has written this superbly crafted legal thriller as a sequel, twenty five years later, to A Time to Kill (1989). That was the first of his novels I’d read and I loved how he dealt with big issues: capital punishment, the universal hunger for justice and mercy, civil rights in Mississippi. And all set in thoroughly gripping, credible courtroom drama. Both of these books also impacted me personally in that they are set in Clanton, Mississippi, a small rural town based on real-life Canton, Mississippi, which I visited in mid-1999. I went there on an adventure, to meet Clyde Lott, a pedigree cattle-breeder. I did that because I’d stumbled onto a magazine article (The New Yorker, 20 July, 1998) which described his helping some Orthodox rabbis in Jerusalem to obtain a red heifer, believing it could “change the world”. As some of you know, I then wrote my book, The Red Heifer’s Ashes (Mysteries of Ancient Israel), which explains the Messianic significance of this death ritual of ancient Israel. emmausroad.org.nz/the-red-heifers-ashes/ I remember how amazing it was to be driven by Clyde past the ashes of a house burnt down in a scene in the film of A Time to Kill, which had an all-star cast: Sandra Bullock, Matthew McConaughey, Sandra Bullock, Samuel L. Jackson, Kevin Spacey, Oliver Platt, Ashley Judd, Kiefer Sutherland, Donald Sutherland, and Patrick McGoohan! All of this to say, I absolutely loved Sycamore Row and I’m very sad not at how it ended but that it ended!
Posted on: Wed, 23 Jul 2014 02:55:51 +0000
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