61 pages • 2 hours read
John GrishamSycamore Row
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2013A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 20-29Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 20 Summary
Ancil Hubbard lives in Alaska—still very much alive—under the name Lonny Clark. In an effort to forget his traumatic childhood in Mississippi, he lives a life of petty crime, always on the run and off the grid. Booker Sistrunk refuses to apologize to Judge Atlee, preferring to stay in jail and garner headlines. Lettie agrees to fire him, after which Judge Atlee bars him from any further participation in the case.
Chapter 21 Summary
Jake notes Portia’s intelligence and interest in law school and hires her as an intern. Quince Lundy’s initial assessment of Seth’s assets lists the estate value at $24 million. Judge Atlee orders the inventory sealed, not wanting the public to know the estate is worth even more than they thought. Jake submits a summary of his hours worked so far to Judge Atlee, earning him a paycheck for $27,000. He also arranges for Lundy and his contracted appraisers, accountants, and consultants to be paid.
Chapter 22 Summary
The legal process of discovery begins with depositions in which the lawyers question potential witnesses under oath. These depositions are recorded so that if the witness is unable to testify at trial for some reason, the video can be used as evidence. Buckley shows up, saying he and Sistrunk still represent Simeon and arguing that he’s an interested party. Judge Atlee kicks Buckley out of the courtroom. Lettie is deposed first and answers tedious questions for hours on end. She reveals she borrowed a total of $55,000 from Booker Sistrunk. The opposing lawyers are thrilled to learn Lettie drove Seth to his office—where he wrote the new will—the day before he died. She reports he asked her to clean his office, but they see it as evidence of undue influence. Herschel and Ramona are deposed next and attempt to make it seem that they had a close relationship with their father.
Chapter 23 Summary
After Herschel replaces his first lawyer with Stillman Rush, Stillman meets privately with Jake. He suggests a settlement that gives $2 million to Lettie and splits the rest between Herschel and Ramona. Jake points out that this goes against Seth’s explicit wishes. Harry Rex tells Jake an old friend is in town trying to sell his house, a very beautiful, very expensive Victorian called the Hocutt House. The owner wants Jake to buy it, but Jake says it’s way out of his budget.
Chapter 24 Summary
Lucien tells Jake he’s been researching land and genealogical records. He says Lettie was adopted by the Taybers and doesn’t know the identity of her biological parents. Records suggest she’s connected to the Rinds family, who disappeared from Ford County around 1930. Descended from enslaved individuals, the Rinds family obtained 80 acres of land during the Reconstruction era—land that was sold to Seth’s father in 1930 to enlarge his estate. Lucien isn’t sure yet how this connects to Seth’s decision to leave his fortune to Lettie.
Simeon returns home after two weeks on the road. Before the extended family eats a Christmas Eve dinner together, Lettie reads a touching letter from Marvis. The day after Christmas, Jake and Carla attend a cocktail party at the Hocutt House, where the owner urges them to buy the house for $250,000.
Chapter 25 Summary
In January, a private investigator hired by Wade Lanier uncovers a story about Lettie that appears to establish a pattern—a woman who previously employed Lettie as a housekeeper also made a handwritten will shortly before dying and left $50,000 to Lettie. The woman’s children discovered the will. They fired Lettie and forced their mother to destroy the will and make a new one, leaving everything to them instead. Lanier plans to use the woman’s son as a surprise witness in the trial, though this would violate discovery rules. He hires someone to break into the woman’s lawyer’s office and steal a copy of the voided will.
Chapter 26 Summary
Jake fires his receptionist and asks Portia to temporarily take over the front desk in addition to her other duties, offering her the title of paralegal instead of intern and a pay increase from $50 a week to $1,500 a month. Lucien decides to retake the bar exam and try to get his license back. Jake feels compelled to offer his help and support. He meets with Judge Atlee to give updates, including the fact that a private investigation firm they hired hasn’t yet found Ancil Hubbard. The judge advises Jake not to purchase the Hocutt House because it will give the impression he’s getting rich off this case and people will resent it.
Chapter 27 Summary
A man named Charley Purdue comes to see Lettie. He says he’s a descendant of the Rinds family, who left Ford County to move to Chicago in 1930. Information he provides supports Lucien’s theory about Lettie’s background, but isn’t conclusive. It’s clear Charley’s hoping for a cut of the money coming Lettie’s way. Portia visits Lucien’s home and they talk about the Rinds family history over hot cocoa.
Chapter 28 Summary
At an unofficial meeting with the litigants, Judge Atlee tells them not to bother contesting that the newer will is in Seth’s handwriting, calling it a waste of time. They discuss jury selection, then schedule a pretrial conference for March 20th. Afterward, the judge meets with just the lawyers and suggests a settlement giving 5% each to the church and Ancil, then splitting the remainder three ways between Lettie, Herschel, and Ramona. Jake refuses, saying his client is Seth’s estate (not Lettie herself) and his job is to carry out Seth’s wishes according to his will.
Later that night, a drunk driver crashes into another car, killing two white high school boys—football players and brothers—from the town of Lake Village. The drunk driver is Simeon Lang. Dumas Lee shows up at the hospital to cover the story. He points out that Jake’s name was on the docket as Simeon’s lawyer for his last drunk driving hearing. Jake insists he isn’t Simeon’s lawyer, that he was just there as a favor.
Chapter 29 Summary
Carla advises Jake on damage control to keep Simeon’s arrest from destroying the Hubbard case. He starts at the Coffee Shop, where gossip and opinions typically originate. His efforts there seem effective. He also encourages Lettie to divorce Simeon, separating her from him in the public’s mind. Harry Rex agrees to handle the divorce case. Jake plans to request a change of venue, though he expects Judge Atlee to deny it, and considers asking to postpone the trial until gossip dies down.
Meanwhile, Lettie’s family begins receiving threatening phone calls. Deputy Willie Hastings responds and offers to stick around their home “to show a presence” (273). Lettie writes a letter to the Rostons, the parents of the boys that were killed, saying how sorry she is about what happened.
Chapters 20-29 Analysis
Throughout these chapters, Grisham emphasizes the mystery of Seth’s motive or changing his will as the central engine of the plot. When Lucien asks Jake why a man would do what Seth did, he says, “This is the question that haunts you now, and it will only get bigger until we find the answer”—effectively outlining the arc of the novel’s plot (223). Jake and Judge Atlee discuss how upset Seth would be if he could see the number of “hungry lawyers fighting over his money” (209), but acknowledge that he could have easily avoided it—the urgency and intentionality of Seth’s actions give them additional weight. They infer that Seth must have had a good reason to leave everything to Lettie, despite knowing the will would be contested and cause chaos. The language Grisham uses hints at the provocative nature of Seth’s motive, foreshadowing the trajectory of the narrative arc and increasing tension.
Lettie’s description of her relationship with Seth in her deposition further complicates the characters’ understanding of Seth’s motive. His will states he will leave 90% of his estate to Lettie, “as thanks for her dedicated service and friendship to me during these past few years” (22), giving the impression that Lettie’s kindness and attentiveness during a difficult time earned her Seth’s deep gratitude. Yet Lettie’s own perspective in her deposition makes it clear that she didn’t consider herself his friend; only “his employee, nothing more: not a friend, nor confidante, nor anything else” (209). This contradiction suggests Seth’s true motive was one best kept hidden. Their conflicting perspectives also reflect the power disparity in their relationship. Within the context of the Inequality and Entrenched Racism in the American South, Seth possesses significant privilege and socio-economic power that Lettie does not and thus has the luxury of viewing Lettie as a friend, while Lettie’s relationship to him is defined by the many ways her livelihood is tied to him as her employer.
The revelation that Lettie drove Seth to his office the day before he died serves multiple purposes. From a procedural standpoint, it educates the reader on the importance of legal precedents in the court system. Because the Supreme Court invalidated a final will in a case with similar circumstances by citing “undue influence” (211), the attorneys in this case see a clear path to a similar verdict. This revelation also escalates the conflict by adding obstacles to Jake’s success. Jake calls it “a gift to them, and a hurdle for him to clear” (211), one that makes his goal of upholding Seth’s handwritten will harder to achieve.
As the plot progresses toward the climax, Grisham raises additional obstacles that jeopardize Jake’s case. Simeon’s drunk driving resulting in Kyle and Bo Roston’s death seems sure to derail everything for Lettie’s case, forcing Jake and Sheriff Ozzie to confront their past choices—specifically the choice to delay Simeon’s previous drunk driving charges—and reckon with the consequences. Whether that choice led to the accident or not, they’ll pay a price for the public’s perception of it—underscoring the connection the novel makes between the impact of public opinion, Unethical Practices in Trial Law, and the difficulty of maintaining personal integrity in such a context. Jake must now decide if the cost of handling this case outweighs the importance of what he’s fighting for.
Grisham reveals Jake’s character through his personal choices—both in Lettie’s specific case and in his career as a lawyer—demonstrating his overall motivation and values. He believes the integrity of his role and his ability to benefit society depends on transparency, following rules, and maintaining a clear understanding of the clients he represents. Jake makes it clear that while he sympathizes with Lettie he resists the temptation to make decisions based on what would benefit her because he represents Seth’s interests, not Lettie’s. He declines to consider a settlement because, as he says, “Lettie Lang is not my client. The estate is, and it’s my job to enforce the terms of the will that created the estate” (248). For Jake, the ethical rules of his profession supersede benevolent urges as well as self-interested ones—an ethos that reinforces Grisham’s tone toward the legal profession and the book’s exploration of Unethical Practices in Trial Law.
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