Boekverslag: Summary of The Chamber
Only three people were involved in he bombing: Jeremiah Dogan, Rollie Wedge and Sam Cayhall. They were all Ku Klux Klan members.
On April 21, 1967, Wedge and Cayhall bombed the Kramer?s office while Marvin Kramer and his two sons Josh and John were in the building. The twin got killed and Marvin lost both his legs. Sam got arrested 14 years later and was sentenced to the gas chamber. Kravitz & Bane represented Sam, but there was nothing they could do. Sam fired them after a couple of years. After nine and a half years a new young lawyer came at Kravitz & Bane. His name was Adam Hall and he wanted to represent Sam Cayhall, because Sam was his grandfather. They had never met before, but when Adam visited Sam, Sam knew he was his grandson. Because Adam looked a lot like his father Eddie, Sam?s son. Sam hired Adam and Adam did everything he could to get his grandfather out of there.
Adam stayed at his Aunt Lee, Sam?s daughter. He found out a lot about Sam. Also this story. When Eddie was a young boy he had a black friend named Quince. Quinces father worked for Sam. One day Eddie and Quince got into a fight and Sam killed Quinces father. And he got away with it. That was only one of the stories Adam found out. There were a couple of more lynchings by the Ku Klux Klan in which Sam killed people. Eddie couldn?t handle it and killed himself later on.
Sam also had a grand daughter, Adam?s sister, Carmen. She also came to visit Sam and Sam was very pleased to see her. Sam also wanted to see Lee, but she got arrested for driving in a car while she was drunk and after that nobody knew where she was.
While time passed by, Adam appealed many times to the Fifth Circuit of Appeals, to the U.S. Supreme Court and to federal judges. They even asked for a clemency hearing, but Sam refused tot talk to McAllister.
Then, one judge, judge Slattery, wanted to talk to Adam about the petition of mental incompetence. So there was a hearing. Dr. Swinn said that Sam was mentally incompetent, but Packer and Nugent said he was extremely alert and very sharp.
Judge Slattery dismissed the hearing and they would hear about it later.
In the mean time, Rollie Wedge visited Sam and told him that if he would mention his name, something bad would happen to Adam or to Lee. So Sam didn?t say anything about Rollie Wedge.
There was also a hotline, which you could phone and say you were against or for Sam?s execution. Garner Goodman talked to Professor John Bryan Glass and Hez Kerry and said that the market analysis was about to begin and if there were some students who could call the hotline under all kinds of names and so the hotline could come in favour of Sam. And so they did and more than 90% was against Sam?s execution. And maybe that could influence McAllisters decision about clemency.
But it did no good. McAllister denied clemency and the Supreme Court denied everything too. And now there was nothing left to do.
Sam only had a few hours to live. Donnie Cayhall, Sam?s brother visited Sam for the last time and brought him some nice cloths, because Sam didn?t want to die in the red monkey suit.
In the Observation Room Sam talked to Ralph Griffin, the reverend, and to Adam. He talked about all the murders with the Klan and how sorry he felt for all the victims. He had written letters before, which Adam had to bring to the families of his victims. He prayed and then Nugent came and took him to the Chamber. They put him in the chair and Sam asked Adam to leave the room. Adam left and he couldn?t help crying.
He went to the cemetery, where Sam?s mother was buried and where Sam will be buried very soon. When he was there Lee also came and they talked a little about Sam. She told Adam that she recently bought the house she lived in when she was young and she burned the whole place. After that they wanted to go to Ralph?s and drink something there, because Sam always took Eddie and Lee there for their birthdays???
Questionnaire
1. The title of the book is ?The Chamber?.
2. John Grisham is the writer of the book.
3. The book contains 598 pages.
4. The first publication of this book was in 1994.
5. This book is English literature.
6. This book is a court of justice novel.
7. The theme of the book is justice, grief over crimes.
8. The first part of the book took place in Mississippi in 1967. The rest of the book took place in Chicago, but also at Parchman, Mississippi and in some other places in America. And that was in 1989.
9. I think the climax of the story is when the last petition was denied and Sam really had no more chance to live. So that was at the end of the book and I hated it.
10. The main characters are Sam Cayhall and Adam Hall.
Sam Cayhall: in the beginning of the book he was a Klansman and he got arrested for killing two little Jewish boys. He was convicted and on February 19,1981, he first set foot on death row. He was an old man, grey hair, and he smoked a lot. At the end of the book he is very sorry for what he has done and asks God for forgiveness.
Adam Hall: he is 26 years old and he is a lawyer and he represents Sam Cayhall, because he is Sam?s grandson. He is very bright and very forgiving. He is also very helpful to his Aunt Lee, who?s an alcoholic.
11. As I already said, Sam really changed during the book. In the beginning a very fanatical Klansman and later on he feels very bad about the things he did in the past. He even feels ashamed about the Klansmen who were outside Parchman.
12. Here are a few minor characters:
E. Garner Goodman: an old lawyer at Kravitz & Bane with a neat grey beard and bushy grey hair
Lee Cayhall Booth: she?s Sam?s daughter and ?married? to Phelps.
Philip Naifeh: 63 years old and 19 months and four days away from retirement. He had served as superintendent of the State Department of Corrections for 27 years.
Daniel Rosen: for 40 years he had been the heart and soul of Kravitz & Bane, but after two heart- attacks the doctor restricted him to fifty hours a week and only trial work.David McAllister: elected governor of Mississippi. He had the looks, the hair, the rich voice, the smooth words, the ability to attract cameras.
Lucas Mann: the prison attorney. He was in his mid- fifties with flowing dark hair, situated on the back of his neck.
Clyde Packer: sergeant at Parchman, he had very long arms, a hard belly and a thick neck.
Baker Cooley: He?s the managing partner of Kravitz & Bane. He was in his early fifties.
George Nugent: assistant superintendent
Just some names: Donnie Cayhall, Carmen, Dr. Swinn, Darlene and some names from other guys on death row: J.B. Gullitt, Hank Henshaw, Stock Turner and Randy, ?preacher boy?.
13. The book has quite some flash- backs, when Sam and Lee tell things which happened in the past to Adam. But also a couple of flash- forwards, when Sam is thinking about his death. And also many conversations.
14. The story is told by the writer himself. He is an omniscient writer.
15. . John Grisham was a lawyer once too and that is the only auto- biographical element in the book. He never had a client on death row.
16. The most memorable event was when Adam left the chamber and thought about Sam, who was suffering at that moment. Sam is also the most memorable person to me, because he was so sorry for what he did and I don?t think he deserved to die.
17. For Ku Klux Klan members I think it has a message. They can see how things can go wrong and how you can die because of what you did.
18. There is not a happy ending, unfortunately. I expected Sam to go free, but all the judges denied the petitions and so he was gassed.
Grisham is het tweede kind uit een gezin met vijf kinderen. Zijn ouders waren gematigde Southern Baptists. Zijn vader was bouwvakker en katoenkweker. Na veelvuldig verhuisd te zijn, vestigde de familie zich in 1967 in het kleine stadje Southaven in Mississippi. Daartoe door zijn moeder aangemoedigd, was de jonge Grisham een fervent lezer die vooral beïnvloed werd door het werk van John Steinbeck, waarvan hij met name de heldere schrijfstijl bewonderde. In 1977, behaalde Grisham zijn B.Sc. titel in accountancy van Mississippi State University. Tijdens zijn studie begon Grisham een dagboek bij te houden, iets dat later hielp bij zijn creatieve activiteiten. Na het behalen van de J.D. titel aan de juridische faculteit (School of Law) van de University of Mississippi, in 1981, werkte Grisham bijna tien jaar als jurist in Southaven, tijdens deze periode verloor hij zijn interesse in strafrecht en werd succesvol in civiel recht.
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- Summary of The Chamber
- John Grisham
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