I am so excited about Windsor Book Club. It’s new and they meet once a month at various coffee shops around Windsor. I have been looking to join a book club, mostly because I can’t get enough of talking about books, but when I learned the inaugural meeting in May would be discussing James Patterson’s Alex Cross’ Trial I had to bow out. I’m still back at book 5 in the Cross series, and didn’t want to ruin anything by reading ahead. When I heard what June’s book selection was, it didn’t prove to be much better: John Grisham’s The Confession. I am not a Grisham fan. Indeed, from the time I read The Pelican Brief, back in the early ‘90’s I vowed never to read him again. I did not enjoy his style of writing and found him very repetitive. But trouper that I am, and because I’m dying to meet this fantastic group of readers, I shelved my cynicism and put the book on hold at WPL.
Much to my surprise, I quite enjoyed The Confession, which is a lesson: Never judge a book by its author or anything they previously wrote. You never know when a book will enthrall.
In typical Grisham fashion, we have an underprivileged young black man on death row, awaiting execution in Texas for the killing of school mate and cheerleader Nicole Yarber. For nine years, Donte Drumm’s hot shot lawyer Robbie Flak has exhausted all avenues in the justice system to exonerate his client. Texas is unique in that a murder conviction can be garnered with merely a confession – no dead body is required. Coerced into confessing to a crime he didn’t commit after hours of police questioning that was more like battering, Donte was sentenced to death.
To make matters worse, Texas has a new governor that is determined to cull the prisoners on death row, and executions are occurring fast and furiously. Drumm’s days are numbered, and his appeals are all but exhausted. With mere days left before his execution, a serial rapist with multiple convictions visits a Lutheran minister in Topeka, Kansas and confesses he is the real killer. A frantic battle ensues to save the life of Donte Drumm.
For the first two-thirds of the book, I was gripped in the story of Donte and his wrongful conviction. I was convinced The Confession was Donte’s story, and how he narrowly cheated death by lethal injection. But this is a Grisham novel, and so I should have known better. The true protagonist of this story is the death penalty, and the risk of killing innocent lives because the American justice system is far from perfect and wrongful convictions do happen.
Although it didn’t have the happy ending I so very much wanted, still The Confession was a worthwhile read.
The book club met up at the Old Town Sweet Shop in Olde Walkerville and amongst tea and espresso, we shared our views of the novel. Opinions were fairly unanimous. The group as a whole found the book predictable, and those who read Grisham religiously found The Confession to be typical – Grisham writes about causes, not so much people or inner conflict. The Confession was likened to Grisham’s fact-based books, that detail specific trials and judicial procedure, and was declared to be very factual in regards to the South, racial attitudes and police procedure. Although we thought the characters to be fairly stereotypical and rather cookie-cutter, we found the Lutheran minister’s actions heart-warming because he believed the real killer’s claims and did everything in his power to stop the execution, and also this character experienced the most growth in the novel. But truly, the book was less about people and more about the ills of the American judicial system and the barbaric practice of the death penalty. We attributed much of America’s judicial ills on the fact that judges are elected. They are likely less concerned with truth and justice and more with keeping their voters happy so they’re re-elected.
All in all, a lively discussion ensued. I met a great group of people and can’t wait for next month’s meeting! If you’d like to learn more about the book club, feel free to contact me.
Till next time, happy reading.
L J
| TBR = 8 | WPL = 18 |
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