Sparring Partners

Each of the novellas in the collection suggests that transformation is an important part of what makes us human; second chances allow people who have made mistakes to be reintegrated into society in productive ways. In “Homecoming,” the protagonist Jake Brigance actively disrupts a federal investigation because he believes that the subject, his friend Mack, deserves a second chance to be with his family after abandoning them and stealing from clients. At every stage of the action, the novel implies that, despite his crimes, Mack deserves another go at being a husband and father. When he first hears from Mack, Jake assumes that Mack “wants to come home and I don’t know, maybe make things right with his family” (15). He assures his wife that Mack is only returning because he wants “to make amends” (15). Later, he tells Mack’s ex-wife Lisa’s family that Mack is returning exclusively so that he can “meet with Lisa and then maybe with the girls” (41). Ultimately, this turns out to be truth: Mack’s only goal is to reconnect with his family, and he respects Lisa’s decision not to see him. The fact that the novella ends with Mack successfully reconnecting with his daughter suggests that Jake was right to give him the benefit of the doubt. Although Mack is undeniably a criminal, he is humanized by his promise to pay for Margot’s college tuition rather than force Lisa’s parents to sell her house.

In “Strawberry Moon” protagonist Cody’s death sentence formally denies him the possibility of a second chance. Judged when he was still a child, Cody is not allowed to exhibit the kind of transformation adulthood maturity and wisdom might bring. Nevertheless, we see Cody turn his imprisonment on death row into a second chance of sorts: He grows into a thoughtful man who has spent his incarceration working to improve the lives of others; if allowed to live, the novella implies, he would be an upstanding citizen. His story makes it clear that trying minor defendants as adults is exactly the cruel and unusual punishment the Eighth Amendment to the US Constitution means to prevent. Cody’s lawyer Jack is being paid by an unnamed nonprofit that is an analog for the Innocence Project, a similar real-world organization of which Grisham is on the board. Jack’s perspective reflects Grisham’s own. His assertion that “it’s barbaric for the state to treat Cody like an adult, and it’s immoral to execute him” (164) is a thesis statement for the novella as a whole.

The protagonist of “Sparring Partners” is Diantha, the long-suffering unofficial third partner at Malloy & Malloy; Diantha’s happy ending in Zurich is only possible because she is given a second chance through her immunity deal with the government. Diantha’s time at Malloy & Malloy is characterized by her involvement in unethical or illegal acts. Some of these, like her affair with Bolton Malloy, are clearly not her fault: The novella describes her as a “twenty-five year old kid fresh out of law school” (222) when the powerful founding partner hires and propositions her. In other cases, like her active participation in the scheme to steal the tobacco money, Diantha is without a doubt complicit, implicated in most aspects of the firm’s corruption. Nevertheless, she is the only partner in the firm not to serve jail time because she alerts the federal government to the Malloys’ crimes and bargains for immunity. Ultimately, Diantha’s second chance is even better than her first: She is out from under the control of the Malloy men, she runs the firm, and she is the sole inheritor of the tobacco money. The government also benefits, as the Malloys’ crimes are revealed and Diantha pays back taxes on the tobacco money.