Critical Essay on The Firm by John Grisham

The Firm is written in a usual for John Grisham genre of a legal thriller – that is, the plot is placed in the environment of jurisprudence and is generally based on various legal issues. This novel very quickly became a bestseller, was adapted for screen and, in general, became one of the iconic examples not only of Grisham’s creative work, but of the genre he writes in as well.

The plot is centered on an ambitious and gifted young lawyer, fresh from a law school and ready to start winning the world. He is suddenly recruited by a prestigious law firm that does everything to make the lives of its employees as stable and pleasant as it is possible – in fact, too stable and pleasant. The salary is extremely high, accompanied bonuses are unimaginable and, of course, the firm is engaged in illegal activities.

The rest of the plot is the main character’s attempts to wriggle out of the firm’s clutches, cooperation with the FBI, plots, intrigues, running away from both the Mafia and the FBI and a lot more. It seems as if there was everything that a good, solid legal thriller should have. However, in my personal opinion, the novel has one really major drawback – it is dragged on beyond any reasonable limits. The whole episodes lead to nowhere, characters stroll around, talk to and suspect each other, think – and all of this is carefully described. If the text were about two times shorter, the book would have been much, much better and easily read – and I suppose that it is one of the major positive traits a book of such kind should have.