The Rainmaker: A Novel [Mass Market Paperback]

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

The Rainmaker: A Novel [Mass Market Paperback]

Product Details

Mass Market Paperback: 608 pages
Publisher: Dell; Reprint edition (December 27, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0345531930
ISBN-13: 978-0345531933
Product Dimensions: 4.1 x 1.3 x 7.5 inches
Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)

By : John Grisham
Price : $9.99

Customer Reviews

"The Firm" still remains John Grisham's best novel, but "The Rainmaker" is his funniest. I have never read a book that better managed to hit my funny bone straight on without tipping over the edge into farce (i.e., John Irving). This time around Grisham's hero is Rudy Baylor, in his final semester of law school and required by one of his professors to provide free legal advice at a Senior Citizens home. There he meets Miss Birdie, an old lady who apparently has millions of dollars salted away and who definitely needs a new will, and Dot Black, who's son Donny Ray is dying of leukemia while their insurance company refuses to pay for medical treatment. In the legal world a "rainmaker" is someone who brings in big clients (i.e., big money) to a law firm. When Rudy's future job suddenly disappears in the wake of a surprise merger, these cases might be his ticket to a promising legal career.
The villains are lawyers from a giant firm and a heartless insurance company, which is certainly stacking the deck but part of the fun. As with "The Pelican Brief" there is a bit of misdirection at the beginning in terms of getting a read on the main character. Rudy is broke and has some shady friends in the legal profession, but the bottom line is he is a good guy and he will do the right thing. Even if it means playing David against Goliath in a stacked courtroom where the presiding judge is best buds with the great Leo F. Drummond of the giant law firm Trent ; Brent, representing the Great Benefits Insurance Company. But then Rudy gets a break. The presiding judge suddenly drops dead and his replacement, Judge Kipler, is a plaintiff's dream. Better yet, Rudy has the truth on his side.
The joy of this book is watching Rudy beat the bad guys. Every single lawyer's trick used by Drummond fails with Judge Kipler. Every dirty trick by the insurance company is exposed by Rudy, who comes up with some little twists of his own. Sure, all the rabbits getting pulled out of the hat is a bit excessive, but that is what makes this such a fun read. At the heart of this book is the quest for justice, but that does not mean we can not enjoy a little payback along the way. The romantic subplot between Rudy and Kelly comes across as something of a diversion from the main story, but at the end it gives the hero someone with whom he can ride off into the sunset. "The Rainmaker" is one of those books where you pick it up from time to time to read the good parts. If you saw the movie and enjoyed Rudy sticking it to the bad guys, then you should enjoy much more of the same in this novel.

I think I understand some of the enthusiasm for The Rainmaker; I too found that I wanted to keep reading, that the plot was energetic enough to push me through the pages. When I read overall praise of the book, however, I'm baffled. It was entertaining, but very flawed. I found the characters flat and dimensionless, and never even felt as if I had a sense of protagonist Rudy Baylor. He seemed a living stereotype-- the bright, well-meaning, down on his luck, little-guy lawyer, blue-collar background, who takes on "the man" in one of his many incarnations: an enormous white-collar corporate conspiracy. Satisfying, but hardly original. There was no greater depth to either Rudy's character or the conflict; both were kept on a simple, surficial level, one most conducive to a fast-paced plot.
Indeed, most of the characters were slightly embellished stereotypes, were vehicles for plot and never real people. Rudy's bosses were the heart-of-gold petty criminals; the opposing lawyers were Ivy League money-grubbers, etc., etc. The girl, Kelly, came off the worst. I found sitting through the patronizing relationship between Kelly and Rudy sickening-- Grisham and feminism ought to be on bad terms after this book. She was a battered woman whom Rudy set out to rescue, but she was never given any autonomy or a character of her own. She was only an idea, a helplessness embodied, a vehicle by which we were meant to see Rudy's chivalry and good-heartedness. The scenes of him dispensing advice to her, with a total disrespect for the person she might have been, the way she coped with her situation (which was of course far out of his understanding), were wretched. But, like any good cardboard cut-out, she obediently fell in love with him and seemed grateful for his condescension.
The book was, as I said, satisfying, amusing, but too easy. Grisham took the easy way out at every step. We never had to think about sympathizing with the bad guys; we never had to contemplate the ethical dilemmas before us, because the 'right' answer was always clear. We didn't have to struggle through the inner conflicts of the characters because there weren't any such conflicts and there were barely any characters. If you're home sick, The Rainmaker is a fine choice. But for substance look elsewhere.