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#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • John Grisham is at the top of his game in this novel of a raw, young basketball player with big dreams—and even bigger challenges off the court.

“Grisham is about as good a storyteller as we’ve got.”—The New York Times Book Review

Samuel “Sooley” Sooleymon is just seventeen years old when he and his South Sudanese teammates come to the United States to compete in a basketball tournament. The opportunity to be scouted by college coaches is a dream come true. Though he is an amazing athlete, his technical game needs work.

And then Sooley receives devastating news from home: as a result of the civil war raging across South Sudan, his father is dead, his sister is missing, and his mother and two younger brothers are in a refugee camp. Moved by his story, the coach of North Carolina Central offers him a scholarship. Sooley moves to Durham, enrolls in classes, and prepares to sit out his freshman season.

But Sooley has a fierce determination to improve. He works tirelessly on his game, and soon he’s dominating in practice. With the Central team losing and plagued by injuries, Sooley is called off the bench. But how far can he take his team? And will success allow him to save his family?

Review

“Hard to put down . . . the pages turn quickly . . . building to a climax that won’t leave readers doubting whether this is a John Grisham novel.”—Associated Press

“An intensely moving story, told with the same eye for character and descriptive detail Grisham brings to his crime novels. His occasional forays into general fiction are usually interesting, but this one is considerably more than that. It’s skillfully written, with a deeply compelling central character and a story that is full of raw emotion and suspense.”—Booklist

About the Author

John Grisham is the author of numerous #1 bestsellers, including The Firm, A Time to Kill, The Rainmaker, The Innocent Man, The Whistler, The Boys from Biloxi, and many more. His books have been translated into nearly fifty languages. Grisham is a two-time winner of the Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction and was honored with the Library of Congress Creative Achievement Award for Fiction. Grisham serves on the board of directors of the Innocence Project and Centurion Ministries, two national organizations dedicated to exonerating those who have been wrongfully convicted. Much of his fiction explores deep-seated problems in our criminal justice system. He lives on a farm in central Virginia.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Chapter 1

In April, when Samuel Sooleymon was invited to try out for the national team, he was seventeen years old, stood six feet two inches tall, and was considered to be a promising point guard, known for his quickness and vertical leap, but also for his erratic passing and mediocre shooting.

In July, when the team left Juba, the capital of South Sudan, for the trip to America, he was six feet four inches tall, just as quick but even more erratic handling the ball and no more accurate from the arc. He was hardly aware of his growth, which was not unusual for a teenager, but he did realize that his well-worn basketball shoes were tighter and his only pair of pants now fell well above his ankles.

But back in April when the invitation arrived, his neighborhood erupted in celebration. He lived in Lotta, a remote village on the outskirts of Rumbek, a city of 30,000. He had spent his entire life in Lotta doing little more than playing basketball and soccer. His mother, Beatrice, was a homemaker, with little education, like all the women in the village. His father, Ayak, taught school in a two-room open-air hut built by some missionaries decades earlier. When Samuel wasn’t pounding the basketball on the dirt courts throughout the village, he tended to the family’s garden with his younger siblings and sold vegetables beside the road.

For the moment, life in the village was good and fairly stable. Another brutal civil war was in its second year with no end in sight, and though daily life was always precarious, the people managed to make it through the day and hope for better things tomorrow. The children lived in the streets, always bouncing or kicking a ball, and the games offered a welcome diversion.

Since the age of thirteen, Samuel had been the best basketball player in the village. His dream, like every other kid’s, was to play college ball in America and, of course, make it to the NBA. There were several South Sudanese players in the NBA and they were god-like figures back home.

When the news of his invitation spread through the village, neighbors began gathering in front of the Sooleymons’ thatched-roof hut. Everyone wanted to celebrate Samuel’s breathtaking news. Ladies brought pitchers of cinnamon tea spiced with ginger and jugs of tamarind juice. Others brought platters of sugar-coated cookies and peanut macaroons. It was the greatest moment in the village’s recent history, and Samuel was hugged and admired by his neighbors. The little ones just wanted to touch him, certain that they were in the presence of a new national hero.

He savored the moment but tried to caution everyone that he had only been invited for tryouts. Making the Under 18 team would be difficult because there were so many good players, especially in Juba, where the leagues were well established and the games were played on tile or even wood floors. In Lotta, like other remote villages and rural areas, the organized games were often played outdoors on concrete or dirt. He explained that only ten players would be chosen for the trip to America, and there they would be joined by five more players, all from South Sudan. Once combined, the team would play in showcase tournaments in places like Orlando and Las Vegas, and there would be hundreds of college scouts. Perhaps a few from the NBA as well.

Talk of playing in America added more excitement to the occasion, and Samuel’s cautions were ignored. He was on his way. They had watched him grow up on the village courts and knew he was special enough to make any team, and to take their dreams with him. The celebration lasted well into the night, and when Beatrice finally ended it, Samuel reluctantly went to bed. But sleep was impossible. For an hour, he sat on his cot in his tiny bedroom, one that he shared with his two younger brothers, Chol and James, and whispered excitedly with them. Above their cots was a large poster of Niollo, the greatest of all South Sudanese players, soaring high above the rim and slamming a dunk in his Boston Celtics uniform, one which Samuel often fantasized wearing.

He rose early the next morning and collected eggs from the family’s flock of chickens, his first chore of the day. After a quick breakfast, he left for school with his backpack and his basketball. James and Chol followed him to their neighborhood court where he shot for an hour as they retrieved the ball and fed it back to him. Other boys joined them, and the familiar noise of bouncing balls and friendly banter echoed through the sleepy morning.

At eight o’clock, the games reluctantly broke up as Samuel and his brothers left for classes. He was in his last year of secondary school and would graduate in a month. He considered himself fortunate. Less than half of his peers—boys only—would finish secondary, and only a fraction even dreamed of university. There were no classes for the girls.

As Samuel dribbled off to school, his dreams were now drifting to colleges far away.

Chapter 2

Two weeks later, early on a Friday morning, the entire family made the long walk to the bus station in Rumbek and watched him leave for Juba and a long weekend of vigorous competition. They waved him off, with his mother and sister in tears. He would return the following Monday.

The departure was an hour late, which for South Sudan was quite prompt. Because of bad roads and crowded buses, the schedules were flexible. Often there was no bus at all and breakdowns were common. It was not unusual for a bus to quit in the middle of the road and its passengers be sent off on foot to the nearest village.

Samuel sat on a crowded bench in the front of the bus, wedged between two men who said they had been riding for three hours. They were headed to Juba to look for work, or something like that. Samuel wasn’t certain because their English was broken and mixed with Nuer, their tribal tongue. Samuel was Dinka, the largest ethnic class in the country, and that was his first language. English was his second. His mother spoke four.

Across the narrow aisle was a woman with three children, all of them wide-eyed and silent. Samuel spoke to them in English but they did not respond. The mother said something to the oldest child and Samuel understood none of it.

The bus had no air-conditioning and dust from the gravel road blew through the open windows and settled onto everything—clothing, bags, benches, the floor. It rocked and bumped along the main gravel road to Juba, occasionally stopping to pick up a hitchhiker or let off a passenger.

Once it was known that Samuel was a basketball player who just might be headed to games in America, he became the focus of attention. Basketball was the new pride of South Sudan, a bright promise that sometimes allowed the people to set aside their violent history of ethnic conflict. Generally, the players were lean and tall and they played with a fierceness that often surprised American coaches.

So they talked basketball, with Samuel holding forth. They stopped in every village and took on more passengers. Full capacity was a moving target and before long the younger men, including Samuel, were ordered by the driver to crawl on top of the bus for the ride and to make sure none of the bags and boxes fell off. As they approached Juba, the gravel turned to asphalt and the constant bumping eased somewhat. The passengers grew quiet as they passed miles of shantytowns, then blocks of sturdier homes. Six hours after he left Lotta, Samuel got off the bus at the central station where swarms of people were coming and going. He asked directions and walked for an hour to the University of Juba.

He had been to Juba once before and was again struck by its modern facilities, paved streets, frantic traffic, tall buildings, vibrancy, and well-dressed people. If he failed to make the team, he planned to continue his studies in the city. If at all possible, he wanted to live there and pursue a profession.

He found the campus and then the gym and stepped nervously inside. It was new, cavernous, with three full-length courts and few bleachers. There were no intercollegiate sports in the country, no college teams with schedules and logos, no fans to watch the excitement. The gym was used for intramural sports of all varieties, and for assemblies and rallies.

At the far end he saw a man with a clipboard and a whistle tied around his neck, watching a four-on-four scrimmage. Samuel walked around the court and approached him.

Reviews:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good basketball novel

L. · June 9, 2021

While John Grisham is mostly known for his legal thrillers, he has also written some popular novels centered around sports such as Bleachers, Playing for Pizza and Calico Joe. Now he turns to basketball with Sooley, a novel about a young man who escapes war-torn South Sudan by making a basketball team that would be playing in a tourney in the United States.Samuel Sooleyman, a 17-year-old with raw but untapped basketball talent, was the last player selected for this team. Considering this a lucky break, he gets even better news when he learns that he will be provided a scholarship to play basketball at North Carolina Central. This was done by the school's coach mainly as a favor to the coach who brought the team from Sudan to America. While at NC Central, Samuel's family is fleeing their village which has been burnt by the fighting. His mother Beatrice and two siblings find refuge at a camp in Uganda, but Samuel is anguished at their plight. In the meantime, his basketball skills improve greatly and he becomes an instant star as NC Central makes an improbable run for a great season.Two main thoughts on this very good novel for basketball fans: one is that for his first basketball story, Grisham writes about the college basketball landscape like a seasoned veteran. Whether it was about recruiting, early practice, redshirting promising freshman who likely will not play (which was going to originally be Samuel's situation) or the NCAA tournament, nearly every basketball passage is written with clarity and depth that will make basketball fans happy. In fact, these were so good that at times I forgot this was a fictional book. This was the case when NC Central makes the tournament as a 16 seed and it is mentioned that no #16 seed has beaten a #1 seed and the same for #15 over #2 and #14 over #3. I thought, "Wait that HAS happened, what is he talking about?" Then I stopped and remembered this is fiction.Speaking of fiction, all of the elements that one would hope for in a good fictional story – good character development, an interesting story and side story and an ending that leaves the reader satisfied. While one might say the story of Beatrice and her family's survival during the fighting and subsequent life at the refugee camp may be the more important story than that of Samuel, it is written with the same care that Samuel's basketball life at NC Central is. Both Grisham fans and basketball fans will enjoy this book.

5.0 out of 5 stars Unforgettable story of human suffering, triumph, downfall and transcending love of family

L. · July 26, 2021

John Grisham has abandoned his usual legal thriller format with this haunting story of Samuel Sooleymon, nicknamed “Sooley,” a teen basketball phenom from the war-torn African nation of South Sudan. His improbable journey takes him from his home in South Sudan to America as a member of the South Sudan national under-18 basketball team and on to a university basketball scholarship and stardom on his college team. Simultaneously, in his South Sudan homeland, the raging civil war brings tragedy to his family. His meteoric rise is chronicled in alternating chapters with chilling scenes of conditions in a Ugandan refugee camp where his mother and brothers have fled for their lives. Sooley’s overriding goal in life becomes rescuing his family from that camp and everything he does is for that ultimate purpose.I always find Grisham’s novels enlightening as well as entertaining. An avid basketball fan, he actually made every aspect of the game -- techniques, strategies, game plans, etc. -- understandable, even exciting. But this novel, as almost every other Grisham novel, had a much deeper underlying purpose than mere entertainment. He builds every story around some form of compelling societal injustice, filling it out with factual details presented through an engaging central character. This novel was particularly compelling with its depiction of the plight of war refugees, especially when juxtaposed against the abundance of American life and the ultrawealthy world of professional athletes. Key scenes layered into this story spotlighted the dangerous culture around casual recreational drug use and the tragedies that sometimes result for those who indulge, either knowingly or unknowingly.Grisham’s novels always close with an unexpected twist that brings a satisfying but often bittersweet resolution to the storyline. This one fell into the bittersweet category and it will stay with me for a very long time.

4.0 out of 5 stars Fictional Story Reads Like True Story -- Wow!

M. · April 28, 2021

Really different Grisham novel!If you don't like basketball before reading this, you'll definitely be a fan afterwards! Grisham's adept storytelling plays out well in this intense Cinderella sports thriller about a seventeen-year-old boy from South Sudan, who dreams of playing basketball in the United States.This poignant story begins in Africa and follows Samuel Sooleman ("Sooley") pursuing his dreams in his own country amid armed conflicts between government and rebel forces. The story splits to follow Sooley on his life-changing adventure, while also sharing his family's horrific experiences in the region's many humanitarian crises.The unusual plot and storyline doesn't fit most of Grisham's traditional genre of legal thrillers, but it's compelling story is both inspiring and heartwrenching with its many twists and challenges. I didn't want to put it down once I started.Grisham's well-developed characters and detailed storyline are so believable it's hard to think this is a fictional tale. Vivid story details and descriptions are well researched, giving life to the narrative that seems like it taken from a first class sports magazine or news magazine.A worthwhile read for entertainment, filled with emotion and energy, while motivating reflection. Several important social issues add depth and interest to a memorable reading experience.I bought Audible's narration supplement separately to add life and personality to my reading enjoyment. A nice touch.Definitely 4.5 Stars!

5.0 out of 5 stars More than loved this book!

D.P. · August 28, 2025

I truly wish Grisham would write a sequel to Sooley. It surprisingly is my favorite John Grisham novel and likely my favorite book as an adult.

Couldn't put it down

G. · February 13, 2024

What a story! The range of emotions this book triggers I like no other written by John Grisham. The story is deeply moving, inspiring, exciting, heartbreaking, and peppered with just the right amount of humor. One of Grisham's best.

Good plot.

M.M. · March 6, 2024

For Grisham fans

Un livre magnifique

F. · August 9, 2022

J'ai adoré cette histoire émouvante peut-être un peu rébarbative pour ceux qui ne connaissent pas le basketball.Personnellement j'ai eu l'impression d'assister aux matches avec le même enthousiasme que les protagonistes de l'histoire et j'ai été touchée par cette saga.

Grisham at his best

K.A. · November 24, 2024

John Grisham schreibt einfach gut, und das beweist er ein weiteres Mal mit diesem Buch, das auf wirklich geniale Weise eine Sportgeschichte erzählt und dabei auf das Schicksal der Menschen im Südsudan aufmerksam macht. Das sind ergreifenden Szenen, die aber nie "schocken" wollen, sondern empathisch mit den Menschen mitgehen, ohne sentimentalen Schreibtisch-Kitsch, dafür auf der Grundlage erkennbar intensiver Recherche. Außerdem ist es ein echt spannender Roman, den man am liebsten in einem Rutsch durchlesen möchte.

A-ma-zing!!!

S.A. · June 19, 2021

What a book! What writing! What a story! My first of Grisham, and he is right up there in my favorites. This is such an enthralling story. I have very little or no knowledge/interest in basket ball. And yet this is how much I loved this book. So for someone interested in the game, it would probably be all the more enjoyable. I loved every bit of the progression of the character and what a sensational twist that I for one never imagined. I just wish lil Angela could have been rescued. But other than that, this is A+

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Sooley: A Novel

Product ID: U0593359534

Condition: New

4.5

Type: Paperback

^AED57¹⁸

Price includes VAT & Import Duties

Availability: In Stock

Quantity:

Order today to get by 7-14 business days

Delivery fee of AED 20. Free for orders above AED 200.

Returns & Warranty policies

Imported From: United States

At BOLO, we work hard to ensure the products you receive are new, genuine, and sourced from reputable suppliers.

Your trust is our top priority, and we are committed to maintaining transparency and integrity in every transaction.

Unless otherwise stated, all prices displayed on the product page include applicable taxes and import duties.

All items are shipped by air, and any products classified as “Dangerous Goods (DG)” under IATA regulations will be removed from the order and cancelled.

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Review

About the Author

Reviews:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good basketball novel

L. · June 9, 2021

5.0 out of 5 stars Unforgettable story of human suffering, triumph, downfall and transcending love of family

L. · July 26, 2021

4.0 out of 5 stars Fictional Story Reads Like True Story -- Wow!

M. · April 28, 2021

5.0 out of 5 stars More than loved this book!

D.P. · August 28, 2025

I truly wish Grisham would write a sequel to Sooley. It surprisingly is my favorite John Grisham novel and likely my favorite book as an adult.

Couldn't put it down

G. · February 13, 2024

Good plot.

M.M. · March 6, 2024

For Grisham fans

Un livre magnifique

F. · August 9, 2022

Grisham at his best

K.A. · November 24, 2024

A-ma-zing!!!

S.A. · June 19, 2021

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