John Grisham’s “The Street Lawyer”
I read this book while on vacation based on Fred Clark’s blog entry about Christian entertainment. The article that Fred quotes cites Grisham’s book as an example of “What Would Jesus Do” in action.
In The Street Lawyer, the protagonist is a high powered lawyer (surprise!) who undergoes an experience that causes him to reject his pursuit of money, prestige, power, etc. Instead, he becomes a low-paid advocate for the homeless.
I would heartily recommend the book as a good example of someone ‘walking the walk’. I would also recommend it for its realistic portrayal of the homeless. Toward the beginning of his change of heart, the protagonist is afraid of the homeless and of the bad parts of D.C. As he gains more experience with the homeless, however, he begins to see them as individuals and loses his fear. That’s a great lesson for us all.
For its pure entertainment value, however, I was not so impressed with The Street Lawyer. The protagonist undergoes a monumental life change, but frankly we don’t see much depth in his character or the other characters.
The Street Lawyer was a very addicting and easy to read book. Overall it was a nice read for an intellectual between the stages of 14-16. The book did bring out the empathy for the homeless, and a new understanding on how we view the homeless. The flaw in the street lawyer, was it lacked a main emotion, there was not a stressed drama, or a extreme tenstion, which has created some of the best writtings we have ever seen, in example the book “To Kill A Mockingbird”, there was a central issue of race, and equalness throughout the book. To me that defines the great novels, and movies a like… drama.