The Rainmaker

Author: John Grisham
Other books by Author: Well known novels: The Pelican Brief, A Time to Kill, The Firm, The Client, The Chamber, and The Testament

General Summary and Plot
Rudy Baylor, a struggling third-year law student, is looking forward to graduation and his job from a small law firm. He painfully finds his firm has been bought by another larger firm and he no longer has a job. Rudy goes through two more job losses until he starts his own firm with a paralawyer, a man who could not yet pass the bar. They spend their time “chasing ambulances” to get cases and making rounds in the hospital.
During a class in law school Rudy must give free legal advice to senior citizens. This is where he meets Miss Birdie, an eighty year old socialite who thinks she is a millionaire; and the Blacks, an aging couple whose insurance company has refused to pay for their son’s bone marrow transplant.
Rudy agrees to take on the case against the insurance company. Donny Ray, the Black’s son, should have received a bone marrow transplant from a perfect match, his identical twin brother, a year ago. Now, his acute leukemia is killing him and he doesn’t have much time left.
Miss Birdie wants to revise her will to exclude her children and grandchildren. She would like to deposit her supposed millions on a tv evangelist.
Rudy spends his days at a hospital studying for the bar exam which hoping clients will come out of the wood work and solicit his services. A young woman with whom he strikes friendship confesses that her husband abuses her and she is too afraid to file for a divorce. She is in the hospital recovering from her latest beating. He must keep his distance and she is to call if she should need him.
The case against Great Benefit, the offending insurance company, is long hard work but things fall into the place. Purposefully hidden documents, scandal, and cover-ups just begin the list of wrongs.
Rudy settles all of his major cases and swears never to practice law again.

Positive Elements
Justice is served; bad men and bad companies are punished. The book is well written; the characters are dynamic and interesting. The plot is fully created, well rounded and intricate.
Spiritual Content
Miss Birdie wants to give her wealth to a tv evangelist who “goes around the world building homes, feeding babies, teaching from the Bible.” The evangelist also has a private jet.
Miss Birdie invites Rudy to church on a Sunday morning. Her “church” is her living room as she watches her favorite tv evangelist. Rudy recalls his childhood when his mother took him to a Methodist church and he liked it very much.
A close friend and his wife obviously regularly attend church, her father is a Southern Baptist Preacher, and frown on Rudy’s drinking.

Negative Elements
A couple of crooks run with their money to an island in the Caribbean, here justice is not met.
There is a very sad abusive relationship after a young girl marries the boy who had gotten her pregnant.

Profanity
Moderate. Not overwhelming but does appear in general conversations.
Dot Black uses the word “sumbitches” often, a word I was not entirely familiar with.

Sexual Content
Rudy mentions a former girlfriend, their “touching” and her legs. She is now pregnant with her fiancé’s child.
There is mention of the abusive husband “forcing intercourse.”
Rudy fantasizes about the body of his new friend. They “touch” several times. After she is beaten a final time and she files for divorce Rudy and (Kelly) lie in her bed holding each other. He does nothing because he is afraid of hurting her.
After some offhand comments Rudy has visions of a fat man naked and the Blacks having intercourse.
A woman, formerly employed at Great Benefit Insurance Company, admits to having affairs with a couple of her bosses to get pay raises and promotions.
One man is described as preferring “kinky sex”

Violence
One girl, Kelly, is severely beaten by her abusive husband.
A jury member jumps on a lawyer after being falsely accused.
Rudy beats the abusive husband with the man’s own baseball bat. (The man dies from his injuries)
The husband’s family makes a series of death threats against Rudy and Kelly. Someone shoots through a window at Rudy’s office. No one is hurt.

Overall Theme
Rudy works hard, is honest, roots for the little guy, and fights for the weak. He is an unlikely hero. Justice is paid in one way or another. Even after all the hard work and effort Rudy gets no reward besides fifteen minutes of fame and a new girlfriend, whom he intends (we hope) to marry.

Conclusion
As mentioned before, a well written book. The sensual parts of it would be worse if the book were made into a movie. In the current written form they are stated almost vaguely when the writer could have gone into painful detail. He has made a good choice in this at least. The interworking of what seemed to be unneeded bits of plot becomes tedious. The book is 443 pages long and could have been shortened to at least 400. In the beginning, it seemed Rudy could never get a good break and Grisham dwells a little too much on Rudy’s numerous misfortunes. Did he need to lose three promising positions in a matter of a couple months added on to being sued and going bankrupt (the list could go on)?

Over all, an interesting page turner. Skim through some of the non- essentials, ignore the lust and sensual points, and the book is hard to put down.

Suggested age group:
Adults, college age. (High school boys do not need to be fantasizing about giving 19 yr old girls sponge baths as Rudy does once)