The Chamber

source : Amazon.com
author : John Grisham

Adam Hall is a 26-year-old attorney, fresh out of law school and working at the best firm in Chicago. He might have been humming Timbuk 3's big hit, "The Future's So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades," if it wasn't for his psychotic Southern grandfather, Sam Cayhall. Cayhall, a card-carrying member of the KKK, is on death row for killing two men. Knowing his uncle will surely die without his legal
expertise, Hall comes to the rescue and puts his dazzling career at stake, while digging up a barnyard of skeletons from his family's past. Grisham fans expecting the typical action-packed plot should ready themselves for a slower pace, well-fleshed-out characters, and heavy doses of sentimentalism.

The chamber in question is the gas chamber at the Mississippi State Penitentiary--and for 69-year-old Sam Crayhall, the road thence has been many years long. Sam was twice tried and twice acquitted for murder after a 1967 Ku Klux Klan scare bombing accidentally killed the twin sons of the intended target; 14 years later he was tried a third time, convicted and sentenced to death. Now, in 1990, a young Chicago lawyer, employed by the firm that represented Sam but which he has just unceremoniously dumped, wants Sam as a client. Adam Hall, the 26-year-old rookie, is Sam Crayhall's grandson. Adam's efforts to save this splendid curmudgeon from death form the center of Grisham's quietly compelling novel, a hub from which the far-reaching spokes of personal dramas extend. The despair of prison life has rarely been so grippingly evoked--no riots or dazzling escapes here, just a drab, pervasive dailiness. And the gradually revealed dysfunctions of the Crayhalls prove both surprising and affecting. This ranks as top-notch Grisham and reveals new dimensions to his talent: the focus on character, the credible emotion and the simple moments of human connection bear comparison to Grisham's work in A Time to Kill .

Reader's review:
While reading The Chamber i cried many times. Sometimes this book will make you smile, other times it will make you cry, and other times it will make you cry out in anger. Sam Cayhall is on deathrow because in the sixties he was in the KKK and bombed a jewish lawyer's building. But something went wrong when he bombed the building;instead of it going off at 5 in the morning when it was vacant, it went off at 8. Unfortunately, it the lawyer's two five-year old sons were in the building and the bomb killed them. Now, his only chance is his 26-year old grandson lawyer who will try everything to help him, and to keep him from getting gassed in the Gas Chamber.

Before reading this book, I was stongly opposed to the death row, but after reading it, well, it makes you think about that. I highly recommend this book.
If you already read the book your insights and comments are highly appreciated, this will give an idea to those who want to enjoy reading this book. -- playfullycute2000

At first, I thought the title referred to a judge's chambers, but this is actually a book about the gas chamber. It took me a litttle while, but after the halfway point I was really connected with the characters and involved with the book. Grisham manages to make the reader just as torn as the other characters about whether Sam deserves to/should die in the gas chamber for his crimes. I got totally immersed in the book, and spent a lot of time contemplating the death penalty in general. This is a masterful story and a good book for anyone who wants to look at the grey areas of the law and what is right and wrong.  -- Jessica Lux

At first glance, one might assume that this book's title refers to a judge's chamber and that this will be another one of Grisham's thrill-a-minute page turners like his other books. This well-researched, movingly-detailed story is difficult to put down, but not for the same reason as his other novels. Instead, it closely resembles the author's first book,"A Time to Kill", an intense courtroom novel examining the politics of Mississippi justice.

The chamber in the title is the death chamber, where Sam Cayhall, a nine-year resident of death row, is slated to be killed with cyanide gas in a few weeks. Cayhall, a frail and elderly man, was a Ku Klux Klan bomber convicted in 1981 of bombing the office of a Jewish civil-rights lawyer in Mississippi in 1967. This explosion killed the lawyer's two young sons and badly maimed their father. Cayhall was freed after mistrials in 1967 and 1968; for the next 12 years, Sam led a normal life until an aggressive new district attorney reopened the case.

The novel's main action begins a month before Cayhall's scheduled execution. Adam Hall, a first-year lawyer in a large, prestigious Chicago firm which formerly represented Cayhall on a pro-bono basis, asks to represent Sam in an effort to get a stay of execution. Adam's secret weapon in the effort to have Sam agree to his representation is that he is Cayhall's long-lost grandson. Although Adam wants to help his grandfather, he must deal with his guilt for wanting to help someone whose beliefs he detests.

When Sam agrees to Adam's representation, a race against the clock begins. Grisham presents a picture of the controlled but frantic coordination necessary during the appeals process. It is literally a legal juggling act requiring split-second timing.

This book reads like non-fiction, with details about how the gas chamber actually works and what happens when it doesn't work perfectly. While it was not Grisham's intent to have "The Chamber" alter anyone's opinion of the death penalty, it will certainly cause many readers to re-examine their position. -- BeachReader

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