By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept

A love story in which the two main characters, Pilar, who is a student in the town of Zaragoza, and her childhood sweetheart who she new as a girl in the small Spanish village Soria, `By The River Piedra, I Sat Down And Wept' weaves ideas about God, religion, and carnal love into a nice, if not a bit obscure work of fiction. Perhaps because this book was not read in its English translation and not in its original Spanish, something was lost in the process.

Pilar receives a message from her childhood friend that he will make a speech in Madrid. When Pilar reaches Madrid, she realizes her friend has become a very influential and powerful leader of a religious movement that embraces the femininity of God. Shortly after the event, her friend professes his love for Pilar, a love that had been a part of his being since the two were children back in Soria, and he bades her to join him on a journey. On this journey, Pilar learns that her friend has not only become a leader of a religious movement, but that he also has the power to work miracles. At the same time, Pilar deals with "the Other," the part of each of our psyches that manifests itself as fear, regret, and other counterproductive emotional responses that prevents us from achieving our full potential as human beings. During this journey through the French Pyrenees, which includes stays at hostels and visits to churches and chapels, the two find themselves at the monastery at Piedra where the two had played as children. It is at Piedra where Pilar's friend must ultimately choose the path of his own life.

Often described as poetic, Coelho's prose in `By The River Piedra, I Sat Down And Wept' is artistic and almost dreamlike. Throughout the book, Pilar actually seems to be in some sort of dream in which she willingly floats from place to place with her friend as she searches for her true self. At the same time, Pilar wonders and worries, as a result of the existence of the Other that lives inside her, what will become of the love that she has for her friend and the love her friend has for her. So, what has the potential to be a powerful and moving story of love is actually blunted by the almost ennui of the writing.

While the reader knows he or she is not reading a Tom Clancy novel, there is not a great deal of action in the story। The majority of the action actually occurs inside of each of the characters. Even the conflict between the two protagonists (assuming either religion or the Other are the antagonist) is muted. As such, `By The River Piedra, I Sat Down And Wept' is really a nice read on a quiet afternoon in a bathtub drinking chamomile tea and surrounded by lit candles, (ladies), but the story and the message leave a little to be desired, I think, for many other readers. It's well done, but just a little cryptic and ambiguous for a lot of folks.

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The Confession

An innocent man is about to be executed.

Only a guilty man can save him.

For every innocent man sent to prison, there is a guilty one left on the outside. He doesn’t understand how the police and prosecutors got the wrong man, and he certainly doesn’t care. He just can’t believe his good luck. Time passes and he realizes that the mistake will not be corrected: the authorities believe in their case and are determined to get a conviction. He may even watch the trial of the person wrongly accused of his crime. He is relieved when the verdict is guilty. He laughs when the police and prosecutors congratulate themselves. He is content to allow an innocent person to go to prison, to serve hard time, even to be executed.

Travis Boyette is such a man. In 1998, in the small East Texas city of Sloan, he abducted, raped, and strangled a popular high school cheerleader. He buried her body so that it would never be found, then watched in amazement as police and prosecutors arrested and convicted Donté Drumm, a local football star, and marched him off to death row.

Now nine years have passed. Travis has just been paroled in Kansas for a different crime; Donté is four days away from his execution. Travis suffers from an inoperable brain tumor. For the first time in his miserable life, he decides to do what’s right and confess.

But how can a guilty man convince lawyers, judges, and politicians that they’re about to execute an innocent man?

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Ford County

In his first collection of short stories John Grisham takes us back to Ford County, Mississippi, the setting of his first novel,A Time to Kill.

Wheelchair-bound Inez Graney and her two older sons, Leon and Butch, take a bizarre road trip through the Mississippi Delta to visit the youngest Graney brother, Raymond, who’s been locked away on death row for eleven years. It could well be their last visit.

Mack Stafford, a hard-drinking and low-grossing run-of-the-mill divorce lawyer, gets a miracle phone call with a completely unexpected offer to settle some old, forgotten cases for more money than he has ever seen. Mack is suddenly bored with the law, fed up with his wife and his life, and makes drastic plans to finally escape.

Quiet, dull Sidney, a data collector for an insurance company, perfects his blackjack skills in hopes of bringing down the casino empire of Clanton’s most ambitious hustler, Bobby Carl Leach, who, among other crimes, has stolen Sidney’s wife.

Three good ol’ boys from rural Ford County begin a journey to the big city of Memphis to give blood to a grievously injured friend. However, they are unable to drive past a beer store as the trip takes longer and longer. The journey comes to an abrupt end when they make a fateful stop at a Memphis strip club.

The Quiet Haven Retirement Home is the final stop for the elderly of Clanton. It’s a sad, languid place with little controversy, until Gilbert arrives. Posing as a low-paid bedpan boy, he is in reality a brilliant stalker with an uncanny ability to sniff out the assets of those “seniors” he professes to love.

One of the hazards of litigating against people in a small town is that one day, long after the trial, you will probably come face-to-face with someone you’ve beaten in a lawsuit. Lawyer Stanley Wade bumps into an old adversary, a man with a long memory, and the encounter becomes a violent ordeal.

Clanton is rocked with the rumor that the gay son of a prominent family has finally come home, to die. Of AIDS. Fear permeates the town as gossip runs unabated. But in Lowtown, the colored section of Clanton, the young man finds a soul mate in his final days.

Featuring a cast of characters you’ll never forget, these stories bring Ford County to vivid and colorful life. Often hilarious, frequently moving, and always entertaining, this collection makes it abundantly clear why John Grisham is our most popular storyteller.

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The Street Lawyer

The man with the rubber boots stepped into the elevator behind me, but I didn't see him at

first. I smelled him though--the pungent odor of smoke and cheap wine and life on the

street without soap. We were alone as we moved upward, and when I finally glanced over

I saw the boots, black and dirty and much too large. A frayed and tattered trench coat fell

to his knees. Under it, layers of foul clothing bunched around his midsection, so that he

appeared stocky, almost fat. But it wasn't from being well fed; in the wintertime in D.C.,

the street people wear everything they own, or so it seems.

He was black and aging--his beard and hair were half-gray and hadn't been washed or cut

in years. He looked straight ahead through thick sunglasses, thoroughly ignoring me, and

making me wonder for a second why, exacdy, I was inspecting him.

He didn't belong. It was not his building, not his elevator, not a place he could afford. The

lawyers on all eight floors worked for my firm at hourly rates that still seemed obscene to

me, even after seven years.

Just another street bum in from the cold. Happened all the time in downtown Washington.

But we had security guards to deal with the riffraff.

We stopped at six, and I noticed for the first time that he had not pushed a button, had not

selected a floor. He was following me. I made a quick exit, and as I stepped into the

splendid marble foyer of Drake & Sweeney. I glanced over my shoulder just long enough

to see him standing in the elevator, looking at nothing, still ignoring me.

Madam Devier, one of our very resilient receptionists, greeted me with her typical look of

disdain. "Watch the elevator," I said.

"Why?"

"Street bum. You may want to call security."

"Those people," she said in her affected French accent.

"Get some disinfectant too."

I walked away, wrestling my overcoat off my shoulders, forgetting the man with the

rubber boots. I had nonstop meetings throughout the afternoon, important conferences

with important people. I turned the corner and was about to say something to Polly, my

secretary, when I heard the first shot.

Madam Devier was standing behind her desk, petrifled, staring into the barrel of an

awfully long handgun held by our pal the street bum. Since I was the first one to come to

her aid, he politely aimed it at me, and I too became rigid.

"Don't shoot," I said, hands in the air. I'd seen enough movies to know precisely what to

do.

"Shut up," he mumbled, with a great deal of composure.

There were voices in the hallway behind me. Someone yelled, "He's got a gun!" And then

the voices disappeared into the background, growing fainter and fainter as my colleagues

hit the back door. I could almost see them jumping out the windows.

To my immediate left was a heavy wooden door that led to a large conference room,

which at that moment happened to be filled with eight lawyers from our litigation section.

Eight hard-nosed and fearless litigators who spent their hours chewing up people. The

toughest was a scrappy little torpedo named Rafter, and as he yanked open the door

saying "What the hell?" the barrel swung from me to him, and the man with the rubber

boots had exactly what he wanted.

"Put that gun down," Rafter ordered from the doorway, and a split second later another

shot rang through the reception area, a shot that went into the ceiling somewhere well

above Rafter's head and reduced him to a mere mortal. Turning the gun back to me, he

nodded, and I complied, entering the conference room behind Rafter. The last thing I saw

on the outside was Madam Devier shaking at her desk, terror-stricken, headset around her

neck, high heels parked neatly next to her wastebasket.

The man with the rubber boots slammed the door behind me, and slowly waved the gun

through the air so that all eight litigators could admire it. It seemed to be working fine;

the smell of its discharge was more noticeable than the odor of its owner.

The room was dominated by a long table, covered with documents and papers that only

seconds ago seenled terribly important. A row of windows overlooked a parking lot. Two

doors led to the hallway.

"Up against the wall," he said, using the gun as a very effective prop. Then he placed it

very near my head, and said, "Lock the doors." Which I did.

Not a word from the eight litigators as they scrambled backward. Not a word from me as

I quickly locked the doors, then looked at him for approval.

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The Testament

DOWN TO THE LAST DAY, even the last hour now. I'm an old man, lonely and

unloved, sick and hurting and tired of living. I am ready for the hereafter; it has to be

better than this.

I own the tall glass building in which I sit, and 97 percent of the company housed in it,

below me, and the land around it half a mile in three directions, and the two thousand

people who work here and the other twenty thousand who do not, and I own the pipeline

under the land that brings gas to the building from my fields in Texas, and I own the

utility lines that deliver electricity, and I lease the satellite unseen miles above by which I

once barked commands to my empire flung far around the world. My assets exceed

eleven billion dollars. I own silver in Nevada and copper in Montana and coffee in Kenya

and coal in Angola and rubber in Malaysia and natural gas in Texas and crude oil in

Indonesia and steel in China. My company owns companies that produce electricity and

make computers and build dams and print paperbacks and broadcast signals to my

satellite. I have subsidiaries with divisions in more countries than anyone can find.

I once owned all the appropriate toys-the yachts and jets and blondes, the homes in

Europe, farms in Argentina, an island in the Pacific, thoroughbreds, even a hockey team.

But I've grown too old for toys.

The money is the root of my misery.

I had three families-three ex-wives who bore seven children, six of whom are still alive

and doing all they can to torment me. To the best of my knowledge, I fathered all seven,

and buried one. I should say his mother buried him. I was out of the country.

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A Painted House

could be a “good crop.”

Thus begins the new novel from John Grisham, a story inspired by his own childhood in

rural Arkansas. The narrator is a farm boy named Luke Chandler, age seven, who lives in

the cotton fields with his parents and grandparents in a little house that’s never been

painted. The Chandlers farm eighty acres that they rent, not own, and when the cotton is

ready they hire a truckload of Mexicans and a family from the Ozarks to help harvest it.

For six weeks they pick cotton, battling the heat, the rain, the fatigue, and, sometimes,

each other. As the weeks pass Luke sees and hears things no seven-year-old could

possibly be prepared for, and finds himself keeping secrets that not only threaten the crop

but will change the lives of the Chandlers forever.

“A Painted House” is a moving story of one boy’s journey from innocence to experience.

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The Brethren

For the weekly docket the court jester jester wore his standard garb of well-used and

deeply faded maroon pajamas and lavender terry-cloth shower shoes with no socks. He

wasn't the only inmate who went about his daily business in his pajamas, but no one else

dared wear lavender shoes. His name was T Karl, and he'd once owned banks in Boston.

The pajamas and shoes weren't nearly as troubling as the wig. It parted at the middle and

rolled in layers downward, over his ears, with tight curls coiling off into three directions,

and fell heavily onto his shoulders. It was a bright gray, almost white, and fashioned after

the Old English magistrate's wigs from centuries earlier. A friend on the outside had

found it at a secondhand costume store in Manhattan, in the Village.

T Karl wore it to court with great pride, and, odd as it was, it had, with time, become part

of the show. The other inmates kept their distance from T Karl anyway, wig or not.

He stood behind his flimsy folding table in the prison cafeteria, tapped a plastic mallet

that served as a gavel, cleared his squeaky throat, and announced with great dignity:

"Hear ye, hear ye, hear ye. The Inferior Federal Court of North Florida is now in session.

Please rise."

No one moved, or at least no one made an effort to stand. Thirty inmates lounged in

various stages of repose in plastic cafeteria chairs, some looking at the court jester, some

chatting away as if he didn't exist.

T Karl continued: "Let all ye who search for justice draw nigh and get screwed."

No laughs. It had been funny months earlier when T Karl first tried it. Now it was just

another part of the show. He sat down carefully, making sure the rows of curls bouncing

upon his shoulders were given ample chance to be seen, then he opened a thick red

leather book which served as the official record for the court. He took his work very

seriously.

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Cross the Stars

THE LONG WAY HOME

Hammer's Slammer Don Slade is coming home to the planet Tethys, to his son and the woman he loves. But the space between is dark and cold. And the stars he must pass shine their light on planets which beckon to the weary traveler, planets which hold hidden dangers.
And if Don Slade should ever reach Tethys ... that is when the real fighting starts.
"-[Drake] has developed a following for his Slammers just short of cult proportions.
-Rave Reviews
the best in military science fiction.
-Boolist

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The Runaway Jury

The face of Nicholas Easter was slightly hidden by a display rack filled with slim

cordless phones, and he was looking not directly at the hidden camera but somewhere off

to the left, perhaps at a customer, or perhaps at a counter where a group of kids hovered

over the latest electronic games from Asia. Though taken from a distance of forty yards

by a man dodging rather heavy mall foot traffic, the photo was clear and revealed a nice

face, clean-shaven with strong features and boyish good looks. Easter was twenty-seven,

they knew that for a fact. No eyeglasses. No nose ring or weird haircut. Nothing to

indicate he was one of the usual computer nerds who worked in the store at five bucks an

hour. His questionnaire said he'd been there for four months, said also that he was a parttime

student, though no record of enrollment had been found at any college within three

hundred miles. He was lying about this, they were certain.

He had to be lying. Their intelligence was too good. If the kid was a student, they'd know

where, for how long, what field of study, how good were the grades, or how bad. They'd

know. He was a clerk in a Computer Hut in a mall. Nothing more or less. Maybe he

planned to enroll somewhere. Maybe he'd dropped out but still liked the notion of

referring to himself as a part-time student. Maybe it made him feel better, gave him a

sense of purpose, sounded good.

But he was not, at this moment nor at any time in the recent past, a student of any sort. So,

could he be trusted? This had been thrashed about the room twice already, each time they

came to Easter's name on the master list and his face hit the screen. It was a harmless lie,

they'd almost decided.

He didn't smoke. The store had a strict nonsmoking rule, but he'd been seen (not

photographed) eating a taco in the Food Garden with a co-worker who smoked two

cigarettes with her lemonade. Easter didn't seem to mind the smoke. At least he wasn't an

antismoking zealot.

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