Unputdownable from start to finish is the best way to describe The Chamber, a legal thriller written by John Grisham and published in 1994 by Doubleday. It covers the story of one Sam Cayhall, a Klansman in the mid-1900s, who is arrested for blowing up the office of Jewish lawyer Marvin Kramer, resulting in the death of Josh and John Kramer -- his two sons -- and injuring Kramer himself. After fourteen years and two mistrials, the jury convicts Sam and sentences him to death by lethal gas
. He is sent to languish in the Mississippi State Penitentiary silently awaiting the day he has to go.
Enter Adam Hall, a bright young lawyer from the top Chicago law firm Kravitz & Bane. The novel then revolves around Adam’s efforts to save Sam from sure death by the State, successfully bringing forth in the minds of readers important questions about the cruelty of the methods used to kill convicted criminals and the practice of state-sanctioned killing itself.
Writing crime fiction and legal thrillers is not a foreign concept for Grisham. Having practised as a criminal lawyer for about a decade until publishing The Firm (1991), he understands the law and legalities just as any other practising lawyer in America. The Chamber was Grisham’s fifth novel after A Time To Kill (1989), The Firm (1991), The Pelican Brief (1992), and The Client (1993), all of which are legal thrillers. While his novels primarily revolve around investigations and legal proceedings, he does incorporate the Southern Gothic subgenre of fiction in his books. Just like several of his other legal thrillers, The Chamber is also set in the fictional town of Clanton, Mississippi. The novel is very aptly named The Chamber, indicating what the book is going to be about - the gas chamber - and introduces you to the moral dilemma you are undoubtedly going to encounter during the course of reading the book.
The book maintains a moderate pace throughout whilst delving deep into the legal proceedings in Mississippi without throwing you off with excessive legal jargon. Grisham does a brilliant job placing just enough emphasis on the characters, bringing them to life and fleshing out their moral dilemmas, and their actions (or inaction), all while achieving what many writers aim to achieve: to spur some thought in the minds of the readers. What stood out was how three-dimensional the characters were, almost as if they were real people in a nonfiction retelling of an important piece of history. Strong waves of emotion are evoked at timely places in the book with just the simplicity of human connection. Adam’s efforts to do all he can to save Sam will leave you both pained and inspired.
The book is set in a time when racist and anti-semitic hate crimes were highly pervasive in the American South and so were movements to fight it. In that context, is this book still relevant today? Absolutely. We are not free from hate crimes against BIPOC communities, more so in America than elsewhere. The sentiments of Sam and some characters encapsulate this mentality well. By displaying what Sam has to say about Jews and Blacks, Grisham presents a reflection of the troubled history of violent hate crimes carried out by the Ku Klux Klan, the American far-right white supremacist terrorist group. The Klan has been infamous for driving hate towards every group but those that they see as their own and that has been addressed cleverly with little subtlety in this book.
Besides the legalities and moral undertones that emerge alongside fleeting moments of complicated familial relationships, the book is a compelling read not just because it broaches such a contested subject, but because it presents such a gripping reality of daily prison life -- the grey drab of monotony and loneliness, the despair due to the inevitability of death, the quiet awareness of time slowly creeping by.
The book also offers an intelligent commentary about the failed judicial system and the problem of overflowing prisons. Grisham, through his masterful storytelling, dissects the moral grounds of capital punishment and makes one ponder about the need for it at all, especially today, where it is still retained in fifty-four countries.
Even as the end nears, nothing is glossed over to make it easier to read - the details about how the deed is done down to the last excruciating minute make it hard to digest but encourage thoughts about the inevitability of death with the proverb “as you sow, so shall you reap” ringing at the back of your head.
Grisham, in his stint as a criminal lawyer, said that he never had to represent a client who was sentenced to death after being convicted of capital murder. He has maintained that he opposes capital punishment, as is evident in the book’s acknowledgements as well, where he confesses that he struggles with the moral perplexities of the death penalty. And this is something I find myself agreeing with too. This page-turner left me with a lot to think about, mainly considering the multi-generational impact of hate crimes -- in thought, speech and action --, the moral grey area that the death penalty lies in, and the failures of the judicial system. The Chamber is a must-read if these topics interest you too.
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