''The Chamber'' (1994) is a legal thriller written by American author John Grisham. It is Grisham's fifth novel.

Plot

In 1967, in

Greenville, Mississippi Greenville is a city in and the county seat of Washington County, Mississippi, United States. The population was 34,400 at the 2010 census. It is located in the area of historic cotton plantations and culture known as the Mississippi Delta. H ...

, the office of Jewish lawyer Marvin Kramer is bombed, injuring Kramer and killing his two young sons. Sam Cayhall, a member of the

Ku Klux Klan The Ku Klux Klan (), commonly shortened to the KKK or the Klan, is an American white supremacist, right-wing terrorist, and hate group whose primary targets are African Americans, Jews, Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans, and Cat ...

, is identified, arrested and tried for their murders, committed in retaliation for Kramer's involvement in the

Civil Rights Movement The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional racial segregation, discrimination, and disenfranchisement throughout the Unite ...

. Sam's first two trials, engineered by his Klan-connected lawyer, each end in a mistrial. Twenty years later, the FBI pressures a suspected associate to testify against Sam at a third trial. Sam is convicted and

sentenced to death Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...

by lethal gas. He is sent to the

Mississippi State Penitentiary Mississippi State Penitentiary (MSP), also known as Parchman Farm, is a maximum-security prison farm located in unincorporated Sunflower County, Mississippi, in the Mississippi Delta region. Occupying about of land,pro bono ( en, 'for the public good'), usually shortened to , is a Latin phrase for professional work undertaken voluntarily and without payment. In the United States, the term typically refers to provision of legal services by legal professionals for pe ...

'' case for a team of anti-death penalty lawyers from the large - and Jewish -

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

law firm A law firm is a business entity formed by one or more lawyers to engage in the practice of law. The primary service rendered by a law firm is to advise clients (individuals or corporations) about their legal rights and responsibilities, and to ...

of Kravitz and Bane. Representing Sam is his own grandson, Adam Hall, who travels to the firm's Memphis office to aid Sam in the final month before his scheduled

execution Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that ...

. Although lacking experience in death penalty cases, Adam is determined to argue a stay for his grandfather. Sam, despite his violent past, is one of the few living links to Adam's family history. Sam's

alcoholic Alcoholism is, broadly, any drinking of alcohol that results in significant mental or physical health problems. Because there is disagreement on the definition of the word ''alcoholism'', it is not a recognized diagnostic entity. Predomina ...

daughter, Lee Cayhall Booth, slowly reveals the family's tragic past to her nephew, Adam. Initially uncooperative, Sam eventually opens up to Adam and reveals a remarkable depth of hard-won legal knowledge, regularly preparing his own briefs and court motions. Adam interviews the FBI agent in charge of the original case and realizes that Sam almost certainly did not commit the actual crime for which he had been found guilty, although he was present. Nevertheless, Sam has a long and largely-secret history of Klan-related crimes, including several murders. Dogan, the associate who testified against Sam at his third trial, has apparently been murdered by the Klan. Sam himself will not reveal if another associate exists, thus not violating the Klan's loyalty oath. Adam desperately files motion after motion and argues some of them before judges. He seeks to persuade Mississippi's

governor A governor is an administrative leader and head of a polity or political region, ranking under the head of state and in some cases, such as governors-general, as the head of state's official representative. Depending on the type of political ...

to grant a reprieve, knowing full well that such a move is politically impossible; Sam forbids such a move, suspecting that the governor is using him for political gain. All appeals are finally exhausted. Sam is now repentant, but does not want Adam as a witness to the execution. He faces the last moment with courage and fortitude, publicly repudiating his past with the Klan, and dies proud of his grandson and happy to have forged a strong link with him during this last month. The sentence is carried out, Sam having ordered Adam to walk away and not watch him die. With Sam and Dogan dead, no one knows that Roland, the third man who prepared and set off the bomb, is still free and living nearby under a false identity and observing the progress of the case - having graduated from Klan member to a full-fledged "proud

fascist Fascism is a far-right, authoritarian, ultra-nationalist political ideology and movement,: "extreme militaristic nationalism, contempt for electoral democracy and political and cultural liberalism, a belief in natural social hierarchy and the ...

" and

neo-Nazi Neo-Nazism comprises the post–World War II militant, social, and political movements that seek to revive and reinstate Nazi ideology. Neo-Nazis employ their ideology to promote hatred and racial supremacy (often white supremacy), attack ...

. The reader knows - but Adam never does - that Roland stalked the young lawyer and considered killing him, but concluded it was not necessary and that Sam would take his secret to the grave. Meanwhile, Adam, sickened but fascinated by the experience - and disliking the idea of having a career as a corporate lawyer - quits Kravitz and Bane. Instead he accepts a poorly-paid position with a group of anti-death penalty lawyers.

Lawsuit and dismissal

Lawyer and author Polly Nelson sued Grisham in 1995, alleging ''The Chamber'' had striking similarities to ''

Defending the Devil ''Defending the Devil: My Story as Ted Bundy's Last Lawyer'' is a 1994 nonfiction book written by American lawyer Polly Nelson, who was a member of serial killer Ted Bundy's legal defense team from 1986 to his execution in 1989. It was published b ...

'', her nonfiction book about her experiences as lawyer for

serial killer A serial killer is typically a person who murders three or more persons,A * * * * with the murders taking place over more than a month and including a significant period of time between them. While most authorities set a threshold of three ...

Ted Bundy.Torry, Saundra (June 19, 1995)
Fact, Fiction and Fairness: The Copyright Wars Surge.
''

Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large na ...

''Owens, John B. (2000). Grisham's Legal Tales: A Moral Compass for the Young Lawyer. 48 UCLA L. Rev. 1431 (2000-2001) After Grisham prevailed in a lower court ruling in 1996, the case was dismissed on appeal in 1997.Kelly, Keith J. (October 10, 1997)
Suit Doesn't Fit Grisham.
''

New York Daily News The New York ''Daily News'', officially titled the ''Daily News'', is an American newspaper based in Jersey City, NJ. It was founded in 1919 by Joseph Medill Patterson as the ''Illustrated Daily News''. It was the first U.S. daily printed in ...

Film adaptation

In 1996, ''The Chamber'' was made into a feature film starring

Gene Hackman Eugene Allen Hackman (born January 30, 1930) is an American retired actor and former novelist. In a career that has spanned more than six decades, Hackman has won two Academy Awards, four Golden Globes, one Screen Actors Guild Award, two BAFTAs ...

and Chris O'Donnell.

References

External links

The Chamber Excerpt
" John Grisham Official Website
The Chamber
"

Google Books Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google Inc. that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Chamber, The 1994 American novels Novels by John Grisham Legal thriller novels American novels adapted into films Capital punishment in Mississippi Novels set in Mississippi Sunflower County, Mississippi