A Time to Kill

I originally read this yarn more than 25 years ago on a three week tour of Italy with my family. It was my parent's tripod a lifetime. Much to their chagrin, I brought this book along with me and whenever we weren't on the go I had my head down reading this book.

I decided to re-visit the book this summer after watching an interview of John Grisham hosted by Adriana Trigiani. I wasn't disappointed, but I'm affected by the story and it's characters differently today then I was 25 years ago. Mr. Grisham's story about the racial divide in Mississippi seemed so far away from my life and I felt superior to those characters that were our right racists. Today, I don't feel quite so superior and I recognize the need for me to step up and take action.

I have read only one other legal thriller. From the ‘experience' of having read two of them, I don't really get why legal thrillers are called ‘thrillers'. I guess the supposedly thrilling element here is about who trumps the other in bribing, cheating, manipulating and finding loopholes in the law, when the truth is staring at us from the beginning. It's more drama than a thriller.


I felt this book to be very American. Probably because 12 random people were deciding, whether a man should live or die. I've seen this peculiar American thing called jury trials in all those TV shows and movies (and especially loved 12 Angry Men) and have always wondered, why there was no such system in India. (obviously I'm not very politically inclined). And then I read this.

Everything that could go wrong with a jury trial happens in here. Truth and justice loses all meaning.

The spine of the book is racial tension which holds it together pretty well. And I had not much idea about the KKK before this.

I like a good revenge story; like John Wick, when the one good thing in his life is taken, out he goes all in. Carl Lee has kids and family. Why did he have to do this? Then again, I'm no black man in a white majority county. I'm no father and I have no kids. What do I know? Still, I hated how Carl Lee took Jake for granted. Maybe his character was inspired by some doofus Grisham himself had to represent. And I don't know if this ‘braless women who come onto married men' and appreciation for ‘women who don't wear pants', is a 90s thing of the South or a fantasy of the author's.

Anyway, even though it drags us around with boring details and squabbles between lawyers, it gets more horrifying and gut wrenching in the last 100 pages. I wouldn't recommend it for everyone. It was...okay.

A Time to Kill is not for those with weak stomachs. In his first novel, John Grisham holds nothing back in describing man's inhumanity to man. If you like reading about violence that would make those with weak stomachs miss a meal, this is your book.

The premise of the book is a thought-provoking one: How would a Southern small town treat a crime by an African-American perpetrated with malice aforethought that it would have permitted a white southerner to get away with?

The book's best qualities are exploring the roots of racial prejudice. that being said I could have done with a little less of the “N” word but I have to keep in mind this was written in 1989.

For those who like legal thrillers where there's some action, this is far more than your usual courtroom drama. It comes closer to the kind of taut threat that permeated To Kill a Mockingbird. The only difference is that Grisham conjures up an intersection in time between the old and new South that never happened.

I found that the book was predictable in its over-the-top treatment of what would have made for good drama. But the extreme situations weakened the plot by making it seem unlikely. I suspect it was a writing method used to be sure that those who didn't know about the old South would appreciate the delicate nature of the emotions involved.

I had read this book a long time ago. Actually I started reading it in the hopes that I could complete one more book soon. But, boy, was I wrong. Every incident was stretched and pulled until I snapped. But except for its length, I have no other complaints about the book. The story is good, and as the author mentions in the preface, almost a real-life tale. A sorry tale, told with empathy, with a just ending. 

I'm not writing off Grisham as an author, but this one did not work for me at all.

The premise is so interesting and I imagine the film adaption is brilliant (I will check it out) but the book was way too long, way too slow and spent very little time on the actual trial. There were just pages and pages of seemingly irrelevant details, it just became a slog to get through.

Il momento di uccidere, in originale “A Time to Kill” del 1989 è il primo romanzo di John Grisham, pubblicato in Italia da Arnoldo Mondadori nel 1992. Il romanzo è un giallo giudiziario tipico di Grisham e si svolge nello Stato del Mississippi nella Ford County intorno agli anni ottanta. Nel 1996 ne è stato tratto anche un film diretto da Joel Schumacher, con protagonisti Sandra Bullock, Matthew McConaughey, Samuel L. Jackson e Kevin Spacey.

La trama del romanzo: una bambina nera viene violentata da due balordi bianchi che poi tentano di ucciderla. Vengono subito catturati ma il padre della bambina, per vendetta (ma anche per il timore che una giuria bianca possa scarcerarli) li uccide all'interno del tribunale. Il romanzo dopo queste fasi iniziali affronta il delicato lavoro dell'avvocato che difenderà il padre assassino. L'esito del processo sembra scontato e la tensione aumenta fino al verdetto finale.

Il libro parte con un atto di violenza brutale commesso da due bianchi ai danni di una bambina nera di soli dieci anni. Ma tutto il romanzo verterà poi non sul processo a questi due balordi, ma al padre della bambina che mosso dalla rabbia e dalla paura di un'assoluzione per i due bianchi, decide di farsi giustizia da solo. Come si evince il tema dominante di tutto il romanzo è il tema del razzismo, soprattutto quando il Ku Klux Klan e un'intera comunità di neri si affrontano fuori dal tribunale, prima della sentenza. Ma effettivamente dove sta la giustizia in tutto questo?

Il libro è datato, ma non di certo l'argomento: oggi come ieri ci interroghiamo sulla paura del diverso, sull'immigrazione e le cronache dei telegiornali così come le pagine dei giornali sono piene di notizie di abusi, stupri e violenze, molto spesso su bambini e ragazzi, ad opera di sconosciuti, balordi, insegnanti, vicini di casa o peggio di parenti. Ebbene quante volte sentiamo la gente che vorrebbe farsi giustizia da sola? Quante volte noi stessi proviamo a metterci nei panni di madri e di padri che gridano al linciaggio? Soprattutto se i crimini sono commessi da persone che hanno origine e cultura diverse dalla nostra.

La scrittura dell'autore è brillante, veloce e sicura come in quasi tutti i suoi romanzi. La personalità dell'avvocato della difesa è ben tratteggiata: pratica, ambiziosa, orgogliosa e determinata, rende questo legal thriller interessante e avvincente. Come sempre immancabilmente nei suoi romanzi troverete i più minuziosi dettagli e le spiegazioni del processo penale.

Un buon libro di Grisham, anche se poi ne ha scritti di migliori.