The following posts are about the books that influenced my thoughts; I start with A Time to Kill. This is tale of a young lawyer defending a black Vietnam war hero who kills the white druggies who raped his child in tiny Clanton, Mississippi, is the first novel by John Grisham.
Carl Lee Hailey, the father, gets an M-16 from the Chicago hoodlum he'd saved at Da Nang, wastes the rapists on the courthouse steps, then turns to attorney Jake Brigance, who needs a desperate win to boost his career. Folks want to give Carl Lee a second medal, but how can they ignore premeditated execution? The town is split, revealing its social structure. Blacks note that a white man shooting a black rapist would be acquitted; the KKK revives itself and starts a new Clanton chapter ; the NAACP, the ambitious local reverend, a snobby, Harvard-infested big local firm, and others try to outmanoeuvre Jake and his brilliant, disbarred drunk of an ex-law partner. The stakes are high and everyone wants the whole cake. Jake Brigance looses his house, his dog, and his wife almost leaves him, due to the consequence of such high profile, society dividing case. Jake is driven to a point of giving up this case and wants to get back his old regular life. Crosses burn, people die, crowds chant "Free Carl Lee!" and "Fry Carl Lee,” the church forms special congressional meetings and the entire trial is watched by the media. The book is beautifully written describing the local customs and invisible divide between the races. It is meticulously researched and no accusatory tone used to describe the whites or the blacks. But the palpable tension is felt throughout the book. The conclusion can be rated one of the stark and hurting truth I have ever read.
This book gave me the true insight of a rural town in America and a lot information about the racial divide there. The customs, the court system and of course the segregation but not explicitly. That is when I decided that I will not discriminate on the basis of colour, religion, language or on the basis of general stereotypical descriptions. It thought me whatever may be the background, everyone is guided by a certain sense dignity and I need to respect that. And this book was the starting point for me to know more about the American culture. John Grisham’s books like The Painted House, The Chamber and The Innocent Man are steeped in full accounts of the rural America and it is not very different from the Indian rural villages. Many situations or the common struggles a man face is universal. It is the love and respect for each other to a large extent which keeps the momentum of life.
This is one book I would recommend first others to read to know about the struggles of the blacks in the US and other is To Kill a Mocking Bird, which is also there in my repertoire. This was made into a successful movie later on in 1996, starring Matthew McConaughey, Sandra Bullock, Samuel L. Jackson and Kevin Spacey.
The closing argument of this case can be seen in the below link to YouTube…
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