Knowing the Ending Before Writing

Grisham discusses his rule of knowing the ending before he starts a novel and why planning prevents wasted effort.

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The Jack Carr Book Club October 2025 selection is THE WIDOW by #1 New York Times bestselling author John Grisham.

Simon Latch is a small-town lawyer in rural Virginia, barely scraping by while his marriage slowly falls apart. Then Eleanor Barnett—a wealthy widow—walks into his office with a simple request: a new will. But when Eleanor’s story begins to unravel and she winds up in the hospital after a mysterious accident, Simon finds himself accused of a shocking crime—her murder.

To clear his name, Simon must uncover the truth about Eleanor Barnett’s fortune and the dark secrets surrounding her life before time runs out.

With THE WIDOW, Grisham—one of the great storytellers of our time—delivers his first-ever whodunit: a taut, character-driven mystery layered with deception, tension, and high-stakes survival.

John Grisham is the author of more than fifty consecutive #1 bestsellers translated into nearly fifty languages. His recent books include FRAMED, CAMINO GHOSTS, and THE EXCHANGE: AFTER THE FIRM. A two-time winner of the Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction and recipient of the Library of Congress Creative Achievement Award for Fiction, Grisham serves on the boards of the Innocence Project and Centurion Ministries, two organizations dedicated to exonerating the wrongfully convicted. He lives on a farm in central Virginia.

This conversation explores Grisham’s inspiration for THE WIDOW, the evolution of his storytelling beyond the courtroom, and what continues to drive his passion for justice through fiction.

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