Sycamore Row review: Race, money and the Mississippi lawyer

The setting of “Sycamore Row” is 1988; hence Brigance is not nearly 60, as he would have been if the novel had been set in present times. He is still a young, idealistic attorney and the Hailey trial is still recent memory. And this is why 71-year-old Seth Hubbard chooses Brigance.

The opening scene in “Sycamore Row” is the most gripping. Grisham describes, like only he can, Hubbard’s meticulously planned suicide, hanging himself from a sycamore tree. Brigance, who has never met Hubbard, then gets a hand-written will and a letter (posted just before the suicide) asking him to be the lawyer for his estate and execute the will.

Hubbard has left behind 90 per cent of his estate to his black housekeeper, Lettie Lang. Five per cent is for his church, and the remaining five for his long-lost brother. His instructions couldn’t have been clearer: “…I want this will defended at all costs and I know you can do it. I specifically cut out my two adult children, their children, and my two ex-wives. These are not nice people and they will fight, so get ready. My estate is substantial — they have no idea of its size — and when this is made known they will attack. Fight them, Mr Brigance, to the bitter end. We must prevail…”

Hubbard, who was broke and bitter after his divorces, has spent the last 10 years of his life on an amazing quest to make money, especially in the timber business. He takes the extreme step when his cancer becomes unbearable.

When it is revealed that his estate is worth $24 million (Dh88 million), and that a black housekeeper will inherit 90 per cent of this fortune, it is open warfare and the lawyers for all sides — Lang, Hubbard’s son and daughter, and their children — flock to the courthouse, all eagerly billing away money from the estate.

To make matters complicated, Hubbard has made another, more conventional will, with a law firm. And the children have now gone to court in their bid to prove that their beloved daddy was not thinking clearly (questioning his “testamentary capacity”) and how the not-unattractive, middle-aged housekeeper has had “undue influence” on him.

Central to all this is the caustic subject of race. In America’s Deep South, especially in Mississippi, it is always an issue. As one memorable character puts it, “A simple black woman on the verge of inheriting what might be the largest fortune this county has ever seen, and the decision rests with a jury that’s predominantly white. It’s race and money, Jake, a rare combination around here.”

In Wade Lanier, Brigance has a formidable adversary in the courtroom. The final courtroom sequences are as entertaining as any Grisham has contrived. Just when things seem to be getting out of hand for Brigance, the video deposition of Ancil Hubbard — Seth’s long-lost brother — arrives. He sheds light on a gruesome event the two brothers witnessed in 1930. And the reason why Seth did what he did becomes shockingly clear.

While “Sycamore Row” is vintage Grisham, it is not a legal thriller in the strict sense of the term; it still doesn’t compare to his first novel. Tedium sets in with drawn out depositions and bland court sequences in the middle part of the book. In a recent interview with CBS news in America, Grisham said: “I didn’t want to finish the book. Normally, when I start a book, I’ve got about six months and I got it all planned. As it gets closer to the deadline, I can’t wait to get finished because I’m really tired of the characters and the plot line. This book, I could have written a thousand pages.”

Thankfully, he didn’t carry out his threat. At 447 pages, “Sycamore Row” is a hundred pages too long.

Sycamore Row By John Grisham, Hodder & Stoughton, 447 pages, $350