Grisham giving away his new short novel
Author famous for legal thrillers writes book about fighting cancer
There are no lawyers or courtrooms in John Grisham’s new thriller. There isn’t even a bad guy.
The protagonist is Paul, a 35-yearold suburbanite with a pretty wife, three beautiful children and a tumour quietly swelling in his brain. One day his wife hears a loud thump in the bathroom.
“She finds him on the floor,” Grisham writes, “shaking in a full-blown grand mal seizure.”
And so begins The Tumor, one of the stranger literary digressions in recent memory. Against the wishes of his agent, editor and publisher, the author famous (and rich) for legal thrillers, from The Firm-to The Rogue Lawyer, just published a free book whose hero is a medical device called focused ultrasound.
Grisham says it’s the most important book of his career.
“I write escapist popular fiction that entertains,” Grisham said in an interview. “It doesn’t pretend to be literature or anything else. But The Tumor has the potential to one day save or prolong millions of lives.”
Focused ultrasound is a non-invasive treatment in development for cancer and other diseases that uses beams of acoustic energy to heat and destroy diseased tissues. How it became Grisham’s 38th book is a question many of his readers have been wondering since it came out late last month. “Huh?” wrote one reviewer on Amazon.
“I really hope it stays free, because if people buy this, they will be very disappointed,” said another.
Others have been more charitable, offering the sort of critical appreciation Grisham was hoping for. “Personally, I’m thankful John Grisham used his name recognition to educate me, an average Jane Doe,” one such reviewer wrote. “This is a prime example of how knowledge translates to power.”
And also how a powerful author can instantly raise the profile of a nonprofit foundation anxious to sway the medical world and regulators.
Grisham, 61, lives near Charlottesville, Va., not far from Neal Kassell, a prominent neurosurgeon who founded the Focused Ultrasound Foundation in 2006. They became friends, inhabiting the same social circle and wine tastings. Grisham calls Kassell his “personal brain surgeon,” although he has not needed his services.
About eight years ago, Kassell asked Grisham to join the foundation’s board.
“I told Neal I know nothing about medical devices or medical technology,” Grisham said. “I went to law school. What could I add to the board?”
Kassell’s answer: raise awareness, which leads to raising money, which leads to influence.
But Grisham wasn’t interested in pleading for cash.
“I don’t like to raise money,” he said. “It’s been my experience that when I ask someone for money it’s not long before they return the favour.”
A few years ago, Grisham said he had a better, more organic way to employ his fame — by writing a book about the technology.
“I couldn’t think of a better way, in one fell swoop, to create awareness for this technology,” Kassell said.
But Grisham’s publishing industrial complex in New York was worried.
“They worry about everything,” he said. “That’s their job. They were worried a lot of readers would feel like they were deceived, that it wasn’t good for my brand. They are very protective of me.”
Grisham decided he didn’t much care, that the cause was worth any risk, and that his fans would tolerate his departure from legal thrillers, just as they tolerate his forays into young adult books and other projects.
The book is short, only 49 pages, and is available to download on Amazon or the foundation’s website. It includes illustrations, graphics and copies of brain scans, much like a promotional pamphlet at a doctor’s office. By page 10, Paul realizes he’s in serious trouble.
The ending isn’t happy, but it’s hopeful. Grisham said he was careful not to give readers false hope. There have been plenty of promising cancer treatments that have eventually failed.
“The tumour will eventually take Paul’s life,” Grisham writes. “With time, research, and improved technology, neurosurgeons are hopeful that a guy like Paul can live to the age of 45 or even 50, long enough to see his children mature.”