‘Time’ for 3rd book in series
Hello again, Jake Brigance! You’ve come back at the right time.
It’s nice to return to the courtroom with someone we trust. It’s reassuring to remember that not everyone is crazy and unpredictable, and that books, even books about crime and punishment, can help restore our equilibrium in this season of high anxiety.
“A Time for Mercy” is the third John Grisham novel to feature Brigance, a small-town Mississippi lawyer specializing in unpopular, seemingly unwinnable cases. He first appeared more than 30 years ago in Grisham’s debut novel, “A Time to Kill” (1989), which began with a printing of 5,000 copies but became a runaway bestseller (and a movie, starring Matthew Mcconaughey and Sandra Bullock) after the explosive popularity of Grisham’s second novel, “The Firm” (1991), which didn’t feature Brigance.
Set in 1985 in the fictional town of Clanton, Miss., “A Time to Kill” described Jake’s defense of an undeniably guilty but very sympathetic client — a Black man on trial for killing two white men who brutally raped his 10-year-old daughter. The novel is a nuanced, sensitive portrait of a particular time and place in a rural south still riven by racial discord and infected by the Ku Klux Klan, a fine work wrapped inside a legal thriller. Some readers like it best of all Grisham’s books.
Jake reappeared in “Sycamore Row” (2013), this time in the service of a recently deceased client with an idiosyncratic view of estate planning. (Among other things, this client left most of his considerable fortune not to his children but to his Black housekeeper, and not for the reasons you might think.)
And now comes “A Time for Mercy.” You get the feeling that Grisham, who has written several dozen books by now, has returned to the place closest to his heart.
Fat lady sings for Met’s season
The Metropolitan Opera will remain closed because of the coronavirus pandemic at least until September. The Broadway League’s president has likewise said “people’s bets are the fall of next year” for a reopening of theaters.
Adding to this growing sense that the resumption of large-scale performing arts in New York, and throughout much of the nation, is still almost a year away, the New York Philharmonic on Tuesday announced the cancellation of its concerts through June.
“It is really fair to say that in the 178-year history of the Philharmonic, this is the single biggest crisis,” Deborah Borda, the orchestra’s president and chief executive, said in an interview.
The halt in performances since mid-march has exposed the Philharmonic, like other arts organizations dependent on ticket sales, to a devastating drop in revenue. Borda said the orchestra would have a deficit of about $10 million for the fiscal year that ended in August.
The orchestra, which canceled its fall concerts in June, said it anticipated losing about $20 million in ticket revenue for the 2020-21 season, and has laid off approximately half its administrative staff. Those who remain and earn over $100,000 have had their salaries cut by up to 30%.