The publishing juggernaut that is John Grisham brings us this, his 10th legal thriller in 10 years. With some 90 million copies of his books in print, it goes without saying that Grisham, 44, is a populist storyteller of the highest order. The question is: How long can the guy keep it up?
Judging from his latest, not forever. The Testament tells the whimsical story of an old and batty business tycoon, his six greedy heirs and the crew of lawyers eager to carve up his $11 billion estate—an irresistible premise that Grisham, as usual, brings to life with engagingly crooked characters and juicy legal twists. But The Testament lacks the tautness and intrigue of earlier bestsellers like The Firm and The Rainmaker, and it has no likable protagonist readers can root for.
It may be that Grisham is simply bored with the genre he helped create; indeed, most of The Testament describes the allegorical journey of a disillusioned lawyer into the dark Brazilian wetlands, where he must find a missing heir and come to grips with his wasted life. It's an adventurous departure for Grisham that—while muddying his latest novel—promises more satisfying work should he ever abandon the courtroom altogether. (Doubleday, $27.95)
Bottom Line: Literary legal eagle shows some wear and tear
by Michael Nesmith
While his former Monkees band-mates still work the golden-oldies circuit, Mike Nesmith has been the only member of the Prefab Four to carve out a notable post-Monkee identity, as a popular songwriter, film producer (Repo Man) and Grammy-winning rock-video pioneer. Alas, as a debut novelist, Nesmith trips up.
His plot centers on a musician named Nez who sets out on a quest to confirm the existence of a legendary New Mexican character named Neftoon Zamora, said to be "part Zuni, part Martian, and part Delta blues player." Unfortunately, Nesmith suffers from genre confusion: The story veers wildly from science fiction to spy thriller to mythic romance. And apart from an ace vocabulary—the Monkees never played around with words like susurrus and prodrome—and some dazzling Joycean flashbacks to Nez's teen years in Texas, Nesmith's prose is dull, dull, dull. With such shaky control of his material, he doesn't allow readers to follow one of Neftoon Zamora's own maxims: "You got to trust the pilot when you get on the plane." (St. Martin's, $24.95)
Bottom Line: Mythological mumbo jumbo
by Chris Bohjalian
Leland Fowler needs to get a life. During the two years since his wife's death in a car crash, the young father has devoted himself to raising their toddler daughter and to his job as a deputy state's attorney in Vermont. The closest he has come to romance is fantasizing about women he spies at the health-food store. So it's probably no surprise that when fate—in the form of a persistent sore throat—leads him to consult comely local homeopath Carissa Lake, he instantly decides she's the cure for what ails him.
It might just be the worst move he has ever made. When one of Carissa's patients falls into a coma because of what may have been irresponsible advice from the homeopath, the stricken man's wife goes straight to Leland's office to demand a criminal investigation.
The many fans of Bohjalian's powerful novel Midwives (a November 1998 Oprah's Book Club selection) will quickly surmise the kind of ethical and legal quagmire in which Leland soon finds himself. They'll also recognize Bohjalian's warm yet uncloying evocation of a deeply rooted Yankee community torn between old virtues and New Age remedies, as well as his deft foreshadowing of plot developments to create suspense. Unlike Midwives, however, which builds to a wrenching courtroom climax, this book ends with a disappointing whimper. To paraphrase another prominent New Englander, this is a road that would have been better not taken. (Harmony, $24)
Bottom Line: Resonant novel of ordinary lives
By Oscar Hijuelos
Book of the week
Oscar Hijuelos rose to prominence with 1989's triumphant The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love, about Cuban brothers who gig their way to fame in the Latin pop world. This time his aristocratic character is no mambo star—she's Lydia España, a wife and mother who cleans the homes of affluent New Yorkers and leads what Hijuelos calls "the kind of life nobody really notices." Clinging proudly to memories of her privileged childhood in Cuba, Lydia often escapes to a fantasy world of sudden wealth and regained youth. In real time, she is becoming a first-class crank and taskmaster to her children. But as Hijuelos pointedly (and sometimes distractingly) illustrates, rich people can also be emotionally impoverished. True beauty, he lovingly suggests, lies in the small moments of a "decent, genteel, low-key" life. (HarperFlamingo, $25)
Bottom Line: Simply splendid
>FIRST PERSON PLURAL: MY LIFE AS A MULTIPLE Cameron West, Ph.D. In this memoir, bought by Hollywood for actor Robin Williams, a man struggles to stay sane when he develops 24 different personalities. (Hyperion, $23.95)
OUR KIND OF PEOPLE Lawrence Otis Graham Debutante balls. Arranged marriages. The obsession with "good" hair. Graham (Member of the Club) offers an insider's view of the black upper class. (HarperCollins, $25)
THE BROKEN HEARTS CLUB Ethan Black A dark thriller in which a romantically bitter NYPD detective hunts down love-spurned men suspected of murdering their former mates. (Ballantine, $24)
>Mary Pope Osborne
When children's author Mary Pope Osborne needs to come up with a new adventure for her Magic Tree House series, she knows exactly whom to ask: her readers. "Kids give me good ideas," she says. "And what's amazing is that some things have universal appeal. Say the words 'saber-toothed tiger,' and they all ooh and ah."
The tales of Jack and Annie, a brother and sister whose tree house is stocked with books that allow them to travel through time, give Osborne, 49, the chance to concoct plenty of ooh-ah material. After encounters with dinosaurs, ninjas and astronauts, the pair's 17th adventure, Tonight on the Titanic (Random House), puts them aboard the ill-fated ocean liner, where they usher two other kids to safety.
Osborne herself lives on dry land in New York City with her husband, Will, an actor-musician; they have no children. Along with her own travel experiences, she says the crucial source of her success—the Magic Tree House series has sold more than a million copies—is not talking down to her readers. "I feel like I'm their age," she says. Which is to say she thinks saber-toothed tigers are pretty cool, too.
- Contributors:
- Alex Tresniowski,
- Victoria Balfour,
- Pam Lambert,
- Erica Sanders,
- Michelle York.
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
