The Pelican Brief

 

The Pelican Brief by John Grisham

Reviewed by Gerti

John Grisham introduces us to a female protagonist in “The Pelican Brief” who must be his ideal woman. Darby Shaw is a brilliant law student at Tulane, so smart in fact that she figures out who killed 2 Supreme Court Justices before even the government does. And that puts her life in danger.

But more than that, Shaw is Grisham’s dream girl, because besides having a first class mind, she is a younger woman who is sleeping with her older and frequently drunk law professor, Thomas Callahan. I sense a little wish fulfillment here, as not only is she brilliant and willing to sleep around, but Darby Shaw is also gorgeous. So stunning that she literally turns heads when she walks down the street, although being modest (as if!), she wears oversized sweaters that hide her rockin’ bod.

Not to take away from the great plot, which has Callahan and his best friend being killed as part of the conspiracy from the White House down to protect the man who wanted the Supreme Court Justices killed just to make more money. Darby is constantly moving and of course outsmarting the government and the virtual mobsters who are chasing her at each turn in order to get hold of “The Pelican Brief”, which she wrote. But like Jennifer Garner in “Alias”, Darby is able to change her identity quickly, dying her hair, moving around thanks to all the money she has, and basically getting help from other fellows who are looking to get in her pants, namely the reporter Gray Grantham. I don’t think it’s an accident that his name sounds a lot like John Grisham, either.

It is a great story, and the suspense level is high. She is being stalked by all kinds of characters, including one of the world’s most infamous assassins, Khamel, who actually killed the esteemed jurists from the highest court in the land. But everyone is so swayed by Darby’s looks, Callahan, Grantham and even “all-business” assassin Khamel, that this reads more like a teenager’s daydream than a classic thriller. Don’t get me wrong – I loved it. But the character of Darby Shaw was so obviously written by a man, and a love-starved middle-aged man, that it is comical and detracts from what would otherwise be a great and gripping story.

Grisham’s writing is as good as it usually is, but I find it hard to enjoy even a thriller like this when the book is so hamstrung by juvenile lusts. I like to think that Darby Shaw could have been a slightly dumpy but brilliant law student, and still written “The Pelican Brief”. But perhaps Grisham wrote the book with the movie version already in mind. Although I had to laugh when Julia Roberts was chosen to play the female lead in the film, and then so obviously didn’t dye or cut her hair (as Darby does many times in the book) to escape the bad guys. It’s just another decision by male “artists” who changed the storyline in order to cater to their vision of female beauty.