Ray Atlee is a professor of law at the University of Virginia. He's forty-three, newly single, and still enduring the aftershocks of a surprise divorce. He has a younger brother, Forrest, who redefines the notion of a family's black sheep.
And he has a father, a very sick old man who lives alone in the ancestral home in Clanton, Mississippi. He is known to all as Judge Atlee, a beloved and powerful official who has towered over local law and politics for forty years. No longer on the bench, the Judge has withdrawn to the Atlee mansion and become a recluse.
With the end in sight, Judge Atlee issues a summons for both sons to return home to Clanton, to discuss the details of his estate. It is typed by the Judge himself, on his handsome old stationery, and gives the date and time for Ray and Forrest to appear in his study.
Ray reluctantly heads south, to his hometown, to the place where he grew up, which he prefers now to avoid. But the family meeting does not take place. The Judge dies too soon, and in doing so leaves behind a shocking secret known only to Ray.
And perhaps someone else.
BOOK REVIEWS
Media Reviews
USA Today - Deirdre Donahue
Some of my happiest, most relaxing reading moments have been spent in the entertaining company of John Grisham. And his new novel, The Summons, ranks as my absolute favorite in many years. After taking a break from writing legal thrillers to write the more literary A Painted House and the holiday fable Skipping Christmas, the prolific Grisham appears more fresh. First, there is an ending too delicious and morally instructive to give away. Second, the novel, Grisham's 14th, skillfully tours the New South of gambling casinos, endless self-storage centers and ultra-rich lawyers who sue multinational corporations.
Recent Reader Reviews
Rated of 5
by Caitlin I would like a refund, please. Not of the money I paid for the book, although that would be great too, but mostly of the completely wasted hours I spent reading it.
It took about two chapters to figure out who the "bad guy" was, if that, and the side trails... Read More
Rated of 5
by Kay The Summons What I liked best about this Grisham book was that Ray was SO human; scared, can't shoot a gun, not sure what to do. So many of Grisham's heros are so smart, physically fit, etc. that they feel like fiction, but Ray was someone I can relate to.... Read More
War, natural disaster, reckless gods and the recognition of impermanence in the world are just some of the threads that AS Byatt weaves into this most timely of books. Linguistically stunning and imaginatively abundant, this is a landmark.
A beguiling, imaginative, inspiring story about the bigness of being alive as an individual, as a member of a tribe, and as a participant in history, exploring how we use storytelling to survive and shape our own truths.
Brilliantly evoking the long-vanished world of masters and servants, Margaret Powell's classic memoir of her time in service is the remarkable true story of an indomitable woman who, though she served in the great houses of England, never stopped aiming high.
Vivid, daring, and unforgettable, The Printmaker's Daughter shines fresh light on art, loyalty, and the tender and indelible bond between a father and daughter.
I read The Healing in two sittings it is a fascinating story of plantation life at the beginning of the Civil War. Granada, a slave newborn child...
read more
The Uncommon Reader is a novella by novelist and playwright, Alan Bennett. The story starts with the Queen coming across the mobile library van...
read more
Arizona bills Amazon for $53 million in uncollected sales tax(Feb 06 2012) The ongoing sales tax battle between many US states and large online retailers, most notably Amazon, continues with a thrust from Arizona which, last week,...
Full Story
Amazon rumored to be opening bricks and mortar stores(Feb 03 2012) There are mumblings in the blogosphere that Amazon is to open bricks and mortar stores. Launch.it offers four possible scenarios:
of 5
by Caitlin
of 5
by Kay
RSS feed
