The Associate
by John Grisham
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Book Reviews of The Associate
Book Review: Another Grisham flop
Summary: 1 Stars
Another year, another stage in the literary deterioration of John Grisham, once upon a time a writer of good legal thrillers. But his books are now formulaic, filled with hackneyed plots, cookie-cutter characters, and storylines which go nowhere.
So it is with "The Associate," the latest mass-produced tripe from Grisham Inc. designed solely to make the best-seller lists. This time, we are presented with the story of Kyle McAvoy, a square-jawed Yale law graduate blackmailed (despite his never actually doing anything wrong) into taking a high-paying job at a big-city law firm. His purpose at the firm has something to do with corporate espionage, although Grisham never quite gets around to explaining who is doing the spying or why they are doing it.
After McAvoy passes the bar and settles into his new job, we are treated to yet another patented Grisham polemic about how big law firms chew up new associates. We watch in horror as the rookies work eighteen- and twenty-hour days, are treated like dirt by the partners and are ejected onto the street in a year or two, reduced to blubbering wrecks in expensive suits.
At least, we're supposed to watch in horror. But we've seen it all before. It's as if the studio exec behind "Friday the 13th Part XVII" expects his audience to freak out when they've already seen the exact same thing in the previous sixteen movies.
Grisham recycles so much stuff from his earlier novels that the book's dust jacket deliberately compares "The Associate" to "The Firm," a far better tale. When an established author purposefully pulls stunts like this, it's not a good sign.
Anyway, with McAvoy dodging his all-powerful (they whack a friend of his apparently just because they can) but hopelessly incompetent (he finds it ridiculously easy to turn the tables on them) spy-runners, the book careens from hack writing into pure unbelievable nonsense. And when the book mercifully sputters to the last page, we once again find ourselves at the end of a Grisham tome with important plot lines unresolved or simply abandoned.
John, let me explain something to you. When I pick up one of your books, I don't expect real life. Real life is messy and often wildly tangential. I do expect everything to come together by the end of the novel, I expect plot lines to be resolved, and I expect questions to be answered.
"The Associate" fails on all counts and is just another sausage-factory Grisham novel. Until the next one.
Book Review: And who is Bennie and why trust Dale?
Summary: 3 Stars
I titled this review with these questions because the answers should have been laid out in a vintage Grisham big business thriller. The book was still a page turner for me and I always personally like his main characters. Kyle McAvoy was no exception. We meet him as he is coaching a basketball game for underpriveleged boys when in walks some pseudo FBI agents. Grabbing Kyle, star Yale graduate, they convince him to take a job at the prestigious law firm of their choice with the quest of obtaining secret materials for the biggest lawsuit ever in this country. Really. The leader of these crooks is Bennie, a mean, clever man who orchestrates the plan. He is the handler; Kyle is the asset. Kyle agrees to this no-win situation because he is threatened with a video which doesn't show, (doesn't show I repeat) him raping a girl in his college days. To protect his future and those of his friends, he agrees to accept the job and the fun begins.
Working in a law firm, I really do appreciate the billable hours and the obession of any incoming associate. During every interview, the candidate always asks, "how many hours are required monthly, yearly.....?" The Grisham law firm, Scully and Pershing, is no exception. The associates are worked and worked until they succumb to the rules, make partner, get fired or leave. Kyle is smart, passes the Bar with no problem, and becomes part of the group. He really does not make any friends except for a female math Ph.D turned lawyer. Her name is Dale and a romance begins and never goes anyplace. What purpose did she serve?
To cut to the chase, Kyle plays by Bennie's rules until he cannot take it anymore. He confides in his father about the video and his situation. His father, who is a small town lawyer, could have helped his son from the very beginning. In fact, we later see the father negotiating a deal for his son. Kyle is constantly followed by Bennie and his thugs but Kyle manages to hire a big time attorney to help him.
Kyle is hoping the FBI is smarter than Bennie and his gang, but they are not. This, of course, is not reassuring, since Bennie should have been flushed out many times. Kyle has no choice but to change his life, take a chance and become what his father wanted him to be. We never find out who Bennie is, was Dale the spy at the firm, what is another partner? Grisham did not tie this one up at all. I always enjoy his writing, but I did not enjoy the plot. He needed a better ending.
Book Review: Soggy Suspense
Summary: 3 Stars
As anyone who has read a few mystery/thriller novels knows, you should never deal with blackmailers. They have no honor. If they had any honor, they wouldn't be blackmailers. But the main character in John Grisham's novel, Kyle McAvoy, lets such people manipulate him.
It's hard to sympathize with Kyle. He was a hard-drinking (and hard-studying) college sophomore who co-hosted a wild party in his apartment. After most of the partiers had left, a serious crime may or may not have been committed. Kyle may or may not have done something that could land him in jail. The incident was investigated at the time, but no charges were filed. Fast forward five years and Kyle is finishing law school at Yale, where he edits the prestigious Yale Law Journal. The future looks very bright, but blackmailers bring up the incident again, and they have videotape that further implicates Kyle. Rather than face the (possibly non-existent) music, Kyle shakes hands with the devil. Kyle has all kinds of doubts and regrets about this arrangement. He plots to get out of his trap.
The following tale is mainly about how Bennie Wright, lead blackmailer, wants to use Kyle, who becomes an associate in a huge, high-powered Manhattan law firm. Kyle has access to sensitive documents about a multi-billion dollar contract for a new bomber, the "B-10 Hypersonic." Bennie's people want this data for reasons the novel never reveals.
The book is also about the pressure-cooker environment endured by attorneys at the firm. They are expected to work seven-day weeks, logging eighty or more hours per week. All the while, the attorneys are heavily billing their clients. Grisham has a lot about overbilling for frivolous and fraudulent reasons. Grisham also looks at the kind of corporate greed that has gotten our country into its current financial mess.
It was all interesting enough to keep me engaged to the end. And, as always, Grisham's prose is lucid. I think this book could be required reading in a college English course, simply because of Grisham's command of the language. I would say it's a "page-turner" if you're not in the mood for suspense. There's no cliff-hanging here. Even Bennie, who is supposed to be malevolent, comes off as rather benign.
As I approached the last twenty or so pages, I asked myself how Grisham could possibly bring it all together in an effective, dramatic way. He didn't.
Book Review: Faulty premise ...
Summary: 1 Stars
*SPOILER ALERT*
(not that there's much to be spoiled)
I love Grisham's writing and I've read every one of his books -- many of them more than once. This is the first time I've regretted spending time on a Grisham novel. There goes 3 hours that I'll never get back again.
Right from the get go I could not understand what motivated the main character, Kyle, to respond to the blackmail / extortion. Here was an outstanding young law student, editor of the Yale Law Review -- a guy with common-sense values learned from his father, who wanted to spend at least the first few years of his career helping those in need, etc etc. When the rape tape appears, Kyle suddenly agrees to go to a mega firm he despises in order to stop the tape from being released. My question at this point: WHY?
I suppose the idea is that he wants to protect his reputation. But Kyle was not involved in the rape (if there even was a rape, which he doubts). He doesn't express the least bit of personal guilt or reflection about it happening. He expresses no sympathy for Elaine; if anything he becomes further entrenched in his opinion of Elaine as the fraternity slut. The only reason he ultimately pays her off is to "put this behind him" (though it's not clear what he is trying to put behind himself).
Perhaps Kyle vulnerability sprung from a desire to protect his friends? Oops, nope, doesn't work. Joel and Baxter don't even come into the story until after he agrees to move to New York. It's all about Kyle, all of the time. He gets one friend killed and puts the other in danger, and seems far more concerned with saving his own skin. But again, saving it from what? Why does he care if the tape is released, other than a little bit of public embarrassment?
Then in a grand, White House-esque example of circular reasoning, the tacit motivation for Kyle's continued involvement shifts to fear of being fired (from the firm that he hates). What?
Up until the halfway point in the book I was willing to overlook the glaring hole. And there were hints of good Grisham writing here and there (e.g., some of the character development is fun to read). But ultimately this was a waste of time and money.
Book Review: Lame finish
Summary: 3 Stars
This is a fast paced novel typical of the later titles by Grisham, although I must admit that I found the ending to be quite a bit disappointing. But then, this seems to be a typical trait shared by several of Grosham's titles, except for a few earlier ones (The Firm, A Time To Kill?....) and perhaps 'The Innocent Man'. The characters seem to come and go at a regular clip. However, some characters are left half baked, while others seem more well-rounded but absolutely irrelevant. Several casual flings, quite a few sub-plots - distracting at times (Baxter) and sometimes titillating - and a very rudimentary treatment of the protagonist's dysfunctional family life fail to speed up the pace of the book.
The protagonist (Kyle McAvoy) is an ambitious Ivy League law graduate who believes that public service and pro bono work is his life's calling. Coming from a dysfunctional family in Pennsylvania, he has some dark secrets from his beer-binging, promiscuous frat days, which he would rather work hard to forget as quickly as possible. But a chance meeting with a bunch of FBI impersonators changes the course of his life. He is forced to accept an offer from the largest law firm in the world, with the express purpose of spying for his handlers, who are adept at keeping themselves one step ahead of Kyle, and everyone else.
Grisham's description of the institutionalized corruption and corporate shenanigans commonplace within most, if not all, Wall Street law firms makes for some intriguing reading, and is perhaps the only bright spot capable of keeping the reader hooked on to the story.
The suggestive sub-plot of an unnamed Government agency (Bennie et. al.) whose only purpose is to protect America's defense secrets from spilling over into the public domain during an acrimonious trial, with complete disregard to any form of due legal process was an interesting one that was worthy of further treatment, but was left pretty much to the imagination of the reader.
All in all, vintage Grisham - fast paced, good plot, too many side plots that tend not to go anywhere, much of the action and suspense is packed into the last one-third of the book, and then an absolutely lame finish.