Last week, I reviewed a new Christmas book. This week I am reviewing one that has been out a since 2001. I am labelling it a “middle-aged” book. My Mississippi Book Club chose it as our December selection.
Skipping Christmas from John Grisham is a departure from his usual crime novels. It is a book for anyone who has ever been overwhelmed by Christmas shopping lists of people who are impossible to buy for, overlapping parties until one is sick of fudge and fruitcake, and decorating in fits and spurts that never gets finished.
Nora and Luther Krank decide to skip the whole thing. Their daughter will not be home for the first time, and they might as well take their Christmas money and go on a cruise. This turns out not to be as easy as they expected since they have annually hosted a much-anticipated Christmas Eve celebration. Then there is the neighborhood Christmas decorating theme with Frosty expected on every rooftop, and biggest shock of all to their friends and neighbors, there will not even be a Christmas tree.
The tale has as many twists and turns as a reader has come to expect from John Grisham with an added sense of humor not usually present in his crime novels and comes to a satisfying end. It is fun to read, and may even make the reader reconsider any frustrated thoughts about whether all the Christmas undertakings are worth the effort.
Interestingly, a couple of us in the book club had not made the connection that it is the basis for the movie Christmas with the Kranks. I had not seen the movie, assuming it was just one more film taking advantage of the holiday. I have added the movie to my “to-do” list since I would never even consider skipping Christmas.