It's been six years since I've read anything from John Grisham, and I don't remember having had quite this reaction to his work before. It was only my general weariness with "legal thrillers" that caused me to stop reading Grisham in the first place, so this is the first time I've been so underwhelmed by one of his books. The Boys from Biloxi strikes me as nothing more, really, than a boilerplate rehashing of a basic plot line I've read way too many times already.
This is the story of two very different families who live on Mississippi's Gulf Coast where boys from each family bond and become fast friends over their shared expertise at youth baseball. But of course, the boys are destined to take very different courses in life because one is the son of a crime boss who is the dominant vice provider in Biloxi, and the other is the son of a family whose patriarch dedicates his life to fighting exactly that type of crime. Each family, by definition, becomes the mortal enemy of the other.
Keith Rudy goes to law school and follows closely in his father's crime-fighting shoes; Hugh Malco, on the other hand, becomes his father's right-hand man, especially after the old man gets sentenced to Parchman, and follows closely in his father's brutal methods of running a crime syndicate. The clash between Keith Rudy and Hugh Malco is inevitable, and it will prove to be deadly.
So with a feel to it of "been there, done that," The Boys from Biloxi is both a coming-of-age novel and a very long, multi-generational family saga (454 pages in the edition I read) that still manages to feel rushed at times. There is a whole lot of "telling" in summary fashion of major plot shifts; short chapters of six or seven pages during which entire crimes are committed and solved; and poorly developed characters that appear over and over again without ever seeming to be all that real despite the numerous opportunities Grisham has to flesh them out.
There is, in fact, so much "telling" going on and so little "showing" that the novel strikes me as more of a fully fleshed outline for a short series of novels rather than itself being one self-contained novel. But The Boys from Biloxi kept me reading for 454 pages, and for that reason alone I'm going to call this a three-star book.
That's a lot of pages for not really liking it, eh? I have not picked up a Grisham probably since the '90s. Not sure it's in the cards now.
ReplyDeleteI think the main reason I kept reading it is because my brother really liked it. He's not a really avid reader, though, so it just never got as good as I hoped it would. Not even close.
DeleteI don't think I would enjoy this one as much as I've liked his other books. Especially if you're only giving it 3 stars. I prefer books with well developed characters, and more showing than telling. So I'll be passing on this one.
ReplyDeleteBased on all of that, this is definitely not one that you would much like, especially as long as it is. Three stars may have been a tad generous on my part.
DeleteI was also disappointed in The Boys from Biloxi and gave up a few chapters in (I did think the background on the two boys and families was interesting at first) recently but I liked two others I listened to on audio: The Whistler and The Judge's List.
ReplyDeleteIt just seems like Grisham, knowing that just his name on the cover is guaranteed to sell a ton of books, sort of mailed this one in based on his reputation. Very disappointing to me. I'll keep the other two in mind for when I get the taste of this one out of my mouth.
DeleteI have never read John Grisham possibly because legal thrillers where a majority of the book takes place in the court room are not my thing but that's an assumption I am making about Grusham's books and I should give him a try. I am thinking Boys from Biloxi could have been a good book if Grisham had not gone for the standard one boy grows up to be a DA the other a criminal plotline. For Grisham's next book maybe he needs to get out of the world of law entirely and write something completely different.
ReplyDeleteIf he just used some imagination and not tried to cram so many events into this one, it could have been a good book. But that old dead horse of a plot is just not all that interesting to most of us anymore, I don't think. He has written novels in the last few years that aren't legal thrillers; I read one about an American football player who goes to Italy to play there (can't remember much about the details) and one about baseball on that I'm similarly vague about. This one comes across to me as if he's getting as bored with legal thrillers as I am.
DeleteI have only read two books by Grisham, but I enjoyed the writing in both of those (The Pelican Brief and A Time to Kill). I was thinking I would read this book because my family used to visit Biloxi in the summer during my childhood. That would have been in the 1950s but still close enough to the time period this book is set in to make it interesting. I may still give it a try, even though I don't like long books especially, if I can find a copy at the book sale.
ReplyDeleteI really liked both of those too, especially A Time to Kill. I think remembering how good Grisham can be based on something like those two is why I got so frustrated with The Biloxi Boys. By the way, this one does cover the 1950s in Biloxi also as it moves through the city's history.
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