# Read the first page of The Testament by John Grisham

Read the opening of The Testament by John Grisham free, no signup. A disgraced lawyer treks into the jungle to find a billionaire's secret heir.

- Page: https://uncovered.ink/read/the-testament-john-grisham
- Genre: Thrillers
- Year: 1999
- ISBN: 9780307576101
- Read it blind (cover and title hidden): https://uncovered.ink/?b=9780307576101&s=read-page
- Buy: https://bookshop.org/a/125786/9780307576101
- Borrow: https://search.worldcat.org/search?q=9780307576101

## The opening

Down to the last day, even the last hour now. I’m an old man, lonely and unloved, sick and tired of living. I am ready for the hereafter; it has to be better than this.

I own the tall glass building in which I sit, and 97 percent of the company housed in it, below me, and the land around it half a mile in three directions, and the two thousand people who work here and the other twenty thousand who do not, and I own the pipeline under the land that brings gas to the building from my fields in Texas, and I own the utility lines that deliver electricity, and I lease the satellite unseen miles above by which I once barked commands to my empire flung far around the world. My assets exceed eleven billion dollars. I own silver in Nevada and copper in Montana and coffee in Kenya and coal in Angola and rubber in Malaysia and natural gas in Texas and crude oil in Indonesia and steel in China. My company owns companies that produce electricity and make computers and build dams and print paperbacks and broadcast signals to my satellite. I have subsidiaries with divisions in more countries than anyone can find.

I once owned all the appropriate toys—the yachts and jets and blondes, the homes in Europe, farms in Argentina, an island in the Pacific, thoroughbreds, even a hockey team. But I’ve grown too old for toys.

The money is the root of my misery.

I had three families—three ex-wives who bore seven children, six of whom are still alive and doing all they can to torment me. To the best of my knowledge, I fathered all seven, and buried one. I should say his mother buried him. I was out of the country.

I am estranged from all the wives and all the children. They’re gathering here today because I’m dying and it’s time to divide the money.

I HAVE planned this day for a long time. My building has fourteen floors, all long and wide and squared around a shaded courtyard in the rear where I once held lunches in the sunshine. I live and work on the top floor—twelve thousand square feet of opulence that would seem obscene to many but doesn’t bother me in the least. By sweat and brains and luck I built every dime of my fortune. Spending it is my prerogative. Giving it away should be my choice too, but I’m being hounded.

Why should I care who gets the money? I’ve done everything imaginable with it. As I sit here in my wheelchair, alone and waiting, I cannot think of a single thing I want to buy, or see, or a single place I want to go, or another adventure I want to pursue.

I’ve done it all, and I’m very tired.

I don’t care who gets the money. But I do care very much who does not get it.

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