Book Review: The Confession by John Grisham

Nine years ago in the small town of Sloan, Texas, Donté Drumm, a black high school football star, was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death for the murder of a white cheerleader –- a crime he confessed to but did not commit. The victim's body was never found, the jury was all white, the confession was coerced, the judge was having an extramarital affair with the prosecutor, the victim's boyfriend and a jailhouse snitch both provided perjured testimony against the defendant, and one of the key witnesses for the prosecution was a dog. Despite all this, and the tireless efforts of Drumm's crusading defense attorney Robbie Flak, the execution is only days away. There appears to be no hope. But meanwhile, in Topeka, Kansas, a just-paroled convict named Travis Boyette, dying (or so he says) of a brain tumor and not wanting to see the innocent Drumm die, confesses to the murder to Lutheran pastor Keith Schroeder, and they rush to Texas in an attempt to prevent the execution. Will they succeed, or will a demonstrably innocent man be executed?

The fact that the question is answered two-thirds of the way through The Confession, John Grisham's latest bestseller, and we slog through to the end demonstrates yet again that Grisham can keep us turning the pages no matter what. The book is just too long and too unfocused. Although at first glance The Confession appears to be an anti-death-penalty novel, the injustices heaped up against Drumm by all involved -- from the small-town police department, prosecutor, judge, and white citizenry, to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals and the Texas governor, all the way to the District Courts and the United States Supreme Court –- are so egregious that Grisham makes little or no case against capital punishment itself. One does not need to be a death-penalty opponent to find repugnant the blatant railroading of someone so clearly innocent. Those who oppose the death penalty need to make a case against executing those who are clearly guilty, and The Confession is no help in this regard.

Comments

[Patrick S. O'Donnell]

One of the two books discussed by David Cole in the latest issue of the New York Review of Books (Nov. 25, 2010) could be said to help make the case against executing the guilty. Unfortunately, the piece is not freely available online but the book in question is by a convicted murderer and prison journalist, one Wilbert Rideau: In the Place of Justice: A Story of Punishment and Deliverance (2010).* Cole writes of Rideau's "successful rehabilitation" [which] may well have been in part the result of his remarkable ability to sustain hope in the face of all evidence."

From Publishers Weekly:

"Against all expectations, his own included, he turned his up-to-then cursed life around, becoming editor of the prison newsmagazine, the Angolite, and an NPR correspondent who published nationally acclaimed articles on prison violence, rape and sexual slavery, and the cruelty of the electric chair. Rideau frames his 44-year fight to get his conviction reduced to manslaughter and win parole (he succeeded in 2005) as a black man's struggle against a racist criminal justice establishment. More inspiring is his self-reclamation through tough, committed journalism in an unpropitious setting where survival required canny alliance building against predatory inmates and callous authorities alike. To a society that treats convicts as a worthless underclass, Rideau's story is a compelling reminder that rehabilitation should be the focus of a penal system."

*See: http://www.amazon.com/Place-Justice-Story-Punishment-Deliverance/dp/0307264815/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1289804546&sr=1-1

[barefoot shoes]

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[Alex Husty]

I read The Confession by John Grisham in 2 days. It is an awesom novel and it will certainly keep you late at night make you turn the pages one by one. This is one hell of an unputdownable novel which I have read this year.

Through this novel, Grisham raises serious question regarding death penalty that we don't have any right to sentence someone for death penalty rather give them life imprisonment.

I really wished Grisham could have kept the boy (Donte Drumm) alive and let the story end on a happy note but just like his previous novel The Chamber, he does the contrary what the readers anticipated for.

[Diana Albert]

The Confession by John Grisham is really an interesting novel.I had read this book last night and had enjoyed lot. I had shared this story with one of my friend and she also liked it.