Sycamore Row

In Chapters 1-9, Grisham establishes the central conflict of the novel—Jake’s legal fight to uphold Seth’s new will—as well as the stakes for each character involved. Initially estimated at about $20 million, Seth’s estate is worth far more money than anyone in the area has ever dreamed of possessing. If the holographic will is upheld, a Black housekeeper will become the richest person in Ford County, allowing Lettie to leave her abusive husband and claustrophobic living situation. Both Herschel and Ramona have problems they hope to solve with a financial windfall. After being told she’s an heir according to Seth’s previous will, Ramona has “not felt such freedom in years” (82). The prospect of losing this barely glimpsed freedom motivates her to contest the new will, regardless of the ethics or cost of that fight.

Grisham establishes narrative stakes for Jake that are both personal and financial, shedding light on the character of his protagonist—Jake’s ambition and desires—and the plot engine that drives the story forward: Will Jake win the case? Though the Hailey case made Jake a hero to many in his community, it also left him with a burned-down home, struggling to make ends meet. It didn’t lead to additional high-profile cases as he’d hoped, and now he fears his “most glorious moment ha[s] come and gone” and that he’s “beyond his pinnacle” (9). Winning a case as important as this one, in addition to paying the bills, will resurrect his career.

Grisham’s setting, the fictional locale of Ford County, Mississippi, provides a microcosm of the Inequality and Entrenched Racism in the American South. Unofficial (or de facto) segregation appears often throughout the narrative. Seth needs to specify in his burial instructions that Black people who wish to attend his funeral are to be admitted. With a 74% white demographic, Ford County poses substantial challenges for a lawyer representing a Black client in a jury trial—further raising the stakes of the plot.

Since Seth’s character exists posthumously for the vast majority of the novel, Grisham uses the impressions and opinions of other characters in the story as a predominant form of character development. Of Seth’s death by suicide, Harry Rex says, “Couldn’t have happened to a bigger asshole” (41). Amburgh’s portrays Seth as someone who loves to keep secrets, play games, and hold grudges (67). Using this technique to define a character who dies just before the opening scene—instead of relying on flashbacks or authorial exposition—helps underscore the novel’s thematic interest in the significance of public opinion.

Through the memories of others, Grisham portrays Seth as a deeply flawed man—with a few redeeming qualities—whose choices set the novel’s conflict in motion. Despite his efforts to promote racial equality in his new will, Seth remains unsympathetic as a character—Grisham represents his impressive financial success as motivated by a desire for revenge against his ex-wife; and his intentions to make his children “perish in pain” as cruel (23).

Grisham shapes Jake’s characterization significantly by the aftermath of the Hailey trial three years earlier. The Ku Klux Klan’s threats and attacks on his family and home have changed him. He’s a dog lover whose dog was killed and a family man whose family home was burned down. As a result, he now carries a gun at all times, and even after three years, police still monitor his home daily. These circumstances force him to question whether the pursuit of justice is worth living in fear—a question that defines Jake’s internal arc in the same way the solving the mystery of Seth’s will defines his external one.

Grisham begins Sycamore Row with Jake fighting battles on multiple fronts—against the insurance company refusing to compensate him for the destruction of his house, and against the Klansmen yet to be convicted for their role in terrorizing his family—all of which have sharpened his sense of injustice in the world. When Sheriff Ozzie comments on the cruelty of Seth wanting his family to suffer, Jake chuckles and says, “Oh, I think it’s beautiful” (27). This jaded response suggests he sees in Seth a man who’s found a way to punish bad people when the law won’t—a desire with which Jake can sympathize.

Grisham narrates Sycamore Row from an omniscient third person point of view. This perspective, which gives the reader simultaneous access to the thoughts and feelings of various characters, was the dominant narrative style until the 20th century but is less common in contemporary literature.

A notable style choice in Sycamore Row is Grisham’s use of terminology to describe race, a prevalent subject in the novel, that evokes the specificity of his setting. Grisham does not capitalize the terms “black” or “white.” He also often uses the terms as nouns rather than adjectives. For example, he writes, “Jake may have been revered by the blacks in Ford County, but he was still resented by many of the whites” (12). This is in keeping with a narrative voice that mimics the language of the time and place—a county deep in the American South grappling with its legacy of inequality and entrenched racism, a key theme that emerges early in the novel.

Ironic humor and a critical tone toward Unethical Practices in Trial Law are also distinctive aspects of Grisham’s style in these chapters. His assertion that Seth “carried the stigma of two divorces and would always be tainted as a true Christian” provides one example of Grisham’s humorous use of irony (4). Seth refers to lawyers as vultures and bloodsuckers, and Russell Amburgh says, “I was a lawyer once, Mr. Brigance, a long time ago before I found honest work” (53). Though character opinions don’t necessarily reflect the author’s opinion, the frequency with which such criticism occurs—through characters and narration—projects a cynical lens on the justice system and its representatives.