The Street Lawyer by John Grisham, Doubleday/Century, $280 I can't recall feeling such a deep sense of embarrassment while reading a book since my father caught me reading The Diaries of Anais Nin as a young teenager.
I tried to hide it under a newspaper but in my haste it dropped to the floor with a thud and the game was up. He just smiled and encouraged me to read on. It was, after all, something of a classic.
I can now imagine hordes of people on their way to work peering into newspapers inside which John Grisham's latest novel is hidden from view - each reader desperate not to be exposed as a follower of the author, and associated with all the superficiality and repetition that has now become his hallmark.
This latest offering is about a lawyer with a conscience, about greed, justice, right and wrong, blah, blah, blah . . .
It seems almost idiotic to knock Grisham, the lawyer-turned-writer, whose eight previous books have sold millions and made him millions.
Such is their popularity that most have been made into films.