John Grisham: When I started all this, my motives were pure. I was not driven by greed or money. I had a story. It was a courtroom drama. I was doing a lot of courtroom work; I was a very young lawyer. But I was handling a lot of court-appointed criminal cases, in trial a lot. And I knew the criminal system, and I knew a lot about it. So I came up with a story about a murder trial, and some of it was based on personal experience, most of it was not. And I kept telling myself, I would like to be the lawyer who defended a father who murdered the two guys who raped his daughter. I think that would be a fascinating case. One thing led to another, and I was sort of consumed with this story. And one night I just said, “Okay. I’m going to try to capture it, see what I can do with words.” And that’s what happened.