BLEACHERS takes us to the community of Messina, Mississippi during four days in October as the town anticipates the death of Eddie Rake, the legendary high school football coach who molded the Messina Spartans into a state high school football dynasty. The four days are viewed through the eyes of Neely Crenshaw, the high school All-American quarterback who exemplifies the glory days of Spartan football. Sadly, his recollections and experiences differ substantially from the glorious memories that the townspeople harbor.

Grisham’s characters are typical of the individuals all of us can recall from our high school years. There is Crawford, the outstanding athlete who everyone thought would play professional football but who never lived up to that promise. There is Cameron Lane, the homecoming queen whose beauty stellar, but limiting, the high school couple who everyone thought would marry, but never did and the big man on campus whose life was destroyed by an addiction to drugs. While Messina, Mississippi may be a fictitious community, the stories of its townspeople are familiar to any town in America. In a way, this is part of the attraction of BLEACHERS — its characters strike a familiar chord.

While we never actually meet Eddie Rake, the legendary coach whose death has brought many back to Messina, he is the glue that holds the story together. His players remember him as both a vindictive slave driver and a mentor who made them better persons. Throughout the deathwatch and the eventual memorial service, the players and the community must decide once and for all whether they love Eddie or hate him. It is the conundrum that many of us face when important figures in our lives pass away.

John Grisham has written BLEACHERS as a paean to the high school football experience that he and numerous others have enjoyed. But there is much more than football in this story. In this short novella about life, growing up and growing older Grisham has given us a haunting look at the years in our lives that we often look back upon with a sense of nostalgia that is difficult to characterize. Just as we did in A PAINTED HOUSE and SKIPPING CHRISTMAS readers see a different and more thoughtful John Grisham. His knack for great storytelling remains and it reminds us why he is recognized and remembered as more than the writer of the legal thrillers he has become known for.

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