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.
