[John Grisham]

"... I hope I can do what Graham Greene did. He wrote fun books but then he also explored the darker side of humanity and man's pursuit of God ...”

“I came under conviction [of sin] when I was in the third grade, and I told my mother, ‘I don't understand this, but I need to talk to you.’ We talked and she led me to Jesus. The following Sunday I made a public confession of my faith. That was the most important event in my life.”

The redemptive power of faith is a strong theme in The Testament. “Nate tried power and women and booze and drugs and the fast life and all the good things that money can buy,” Grisham says. “He’s crashed and burned four times in 10 years, and it’s obvious he can’t save himself. I wanted to take a guy like that and sort of follow him on a kind of spiritual journey, his quest for a spiritual core. I was challenged by the goal of seeing if I could make such a spiritual journey work in a popular novel, in commercial fiction. To do it, I had to keep the legal stuff fresh.”

Some reading The Testament will wonder if Grisham has recently had a great leap in his own faith. “There’s been no dramatic change in faith or spiritual growth,” he says, smiling. “I mean, you always hope you’re growing as a Christian. Your whole life you're supposed to (do that).”

He knows spiritual aspects of The Testament invite the question. “This book is different in that it’s the first time I just sought out to have the main character follow what becomes a spiritual journey,” he says. “But I hope I can do what Graham Greene did. He wrote fun books but then he also explored the darker side of humanity and man’s pursuit of God.”

Grisham is, by any measure, a huge success. He has written 10 books and has 110 million copies in print. Six of his novels have been made into movies.

But having it all doesn’t mean keeping it all. He and his wife, Renee, “measure the success of the year on how much we give away,” he says.

So much that they have set up a foundation to oversee donations. So much that “the kids have said, ‘Look, don’t give it all away.”

A big chunk of money goes into the Little League park he built near their Virginia home, but “the bulk of it goes to church and related activities,” he says.

Adapted from an article by Katy Kelly for USA TODAY and from an interview by Jennifer Ferranti for the Plain Truth