Irony
of Surveillance in a Consumer and Media-Saturated Society
A Postmodernist Analysis of John Grisham’s The Firm
Contents
Irony
of Surveillance in a Consumer and Media-Saturated Society, A Postmodernist
Analysis of John Grisham’s The Firm
Background to the Study
It is the reflection
of a basic reality; it masks and perverts a basic
reality;
it masks the absence of a basic reality;
it bears no relation to any
reality whatsoever; it is its own pure simulacrum (Hartley and Whitehead
173).
Baudrillard’s
assertion about contemporary image, that is, its disguise and deflection of
reality is a key to the exploration of the relationship between postmodernist
media dominance and consumerism and the transformation of social identity. The
popular cultural trends divulgated by the postmodernist channels among others
TVs, VDUs, videos, photocopiers, printers, computers, computer games, personal
stereos, adverts, theme parks, shopping malls, etc. have triggered the need for
individuals to accumulate money in order to cope with the excessive leisure and
conspicuous consumption of the postmodernist world. Therefore, within national social
institutions, the governments have to enhance their capacity to observe the
civil institutions. But due to consumer capitalism and mass media production,
some private sectors allure the government institutions through enticement of a big
amount of money and luxurious provisions. The government surveillance agencies
such as police and army fail to monitor the actions and movements of the civil
institutions which have hired their own private and secret investigators.
Likewise, individuals can defy both the government and civil institutions
through their power to manipulate information and media technology. Thus in the
1980s and 1990s, the secret tactics of mafia organisations could not be easily
detected by the strong American government security institutions such as the
FBI and CIA. In addition, individuals or families could hire secret private
investigators who were able to track the communication systems and information
network of Mafia organisations and/or the FIB corporations.
John
Grisham in his novel The Firm
articulates this correlation of mass media, hedonism, and surveillance in the contemporary
American society. The Firm was
published in 1991 and was one of the book series that made Grisham the
bestseller of the 1990s. The massive selling of the copies of The Firm introduced Grisham to the American
entertainment industry. Therefore, this success in entertainment market incited
him to stop his profession of law in order to devote himself to popular
fiction. In The Firm, Grisham uses his professional knowledge of law in order to represent the power of media in
a hedonist and postmodernist society. The narrative is set in Southaven,
Mississippi. The hero Mitch McDeere is a lawyer. After his graduation from the
Harvard University, he is employed by the criminal agency of the mafia in
Memphis, a firm of Bendini, Lambert & Locke. His initial salary is $80,000
and he is promised to get it increased on condition on he keeps secret and
works hard to promote the firm. The salary and promotion promises ensure him to fulfil his hedonist dreams. This
is mostly motivated by the facilities the Mafia firm provides him and his
family, among others a big house, a car, and outings in hotels and beaches. But
later he learns that the firm is a mafia property and that his actions and
behavior are monitored via bugs which are
installed everywhere in his house, office, cell phone, land line. A system of
information reception and transmission is connected with his house, his car,
and his office table and broadcast directly to the main information technology
center of the firm which records every detail
on the firm employees. But through changing identity and style, Mitch disguises
himself and foils the Mafia firm and reports it to FBI after offering him a great sum of money. The triumphant manipulation
done by the hero, Mitch suggests the irony of surveillance in an excessively mediated
and consumer society.
This
paper aims at investigating the irony of surveillance through popular cultural
images and media saturation in Grisham’s novel The Firm. It explores how mass media and popular cultural styles
are used to manipulate social institutions as represented by The
Firm. Unexpectedly, by using the same power of media and popular cultural
images, the individuals and institutions foil the network system of the media
and escapes their control. Thus based on postmodernist criticism, this paper finds
out that changing identity through postmodern images can fragmentize the controlling
power of consumerism and media-saturation and make any surveillance operation in
the contemporary world ironical.
Research Questions
1.
How are postmodernist media channels and styles used to manipulate social
institutions and control individuals through close surveillance?
2.
How do individuals and social institutions counteract the power of surveillance
by changing their identity?
Theoretical Framework
The
research deals with the postmodernist analysis of contemporary popular culture
as represented by John Grisham’s The Firm.
It is based on the postmodernist identity theory which asserts the power of
media to transform identity through fashion, style, diction, cosmetics, etc. In
the novel under study, this power of the postmodern culture to manipulate
images endows the individuals and institutions to uncover the concealed
manoeuvres used by government or social institutions to manipulate and control
them. In addition, they use the same mediatic power to counteract the ambushes
of their opponents. The analysis anchors on the production approach of popular
culture and the deterministic and reflexive theories of literature in a bid to
accounting for the relevance of the novel to the American social ideologies and
the authorial professional background.
1. Popular Culture Analysis
According to
Toby Miller (2001), the analysis of a cultural
text is a synthesis of philosophy and critical social theory through a multiperspective approach including production
and political economy of culture, textual analysis and critique of its
artefacts, and the study of audience reception and the use of cultural products (Miller 143). This theory of analysis in
cultural studies was later reworked by Douglas Kellner (1995) considering that
the analysis of cultural text must deal with the complex relations between the
text, audience, production or media industry, and the politics and
socio-historical context (Kellner 37). In other words, cultural texts should be
analysed against the backdrop of production and reception of cultural texts
within concrete historical contexts. Thus in the light of Stuart Hall and
Richard Johnson (Hall and Johnson19), these approaches constitute the circuit
of cultural or cultural circulation which can be summarised into three clusters of research methodological
aspects. Firstly, to assess the production consists in looking for
the significant social, cultural, and/or politico-economic contexts of
production of the cultural text. This means investigating who produced it, how
was it produced, for whom, to what end, or as a response to what it was
produced. In addition, the researcher looks at the production systems which
were utilised in making the cultural
text, the structural determinants and constraints of its production context
including money, technology, and socio-political forms of human labour, and the structure of the production
context like for instance, etc. This variable goes with the contextual factors
which shape or constrain the message conveyed within the cultural text. This
means that a text reflects larger ideological and political-economic realities
which might have channelled or hampered
its distribution marketing arrangements. Moreover, the production analysis
interrogates the way the cultural text has been marketed, distributed, and
exhibited and how it relates to political economy and cultural difference
matters.
Secondly, the historical and textual analysis is concerned with the
representation and transmission on the one hand and the form, content, and
discourse on the other. Thus formal, technical, linguistic devices and semiotic codes used in text
composition are the object of study. This
means that the genre and narrative form should be identified in order to be
thoroughly analysed. In addition, the ideology and power representation have to be taken into account. Therefore, the
representation of cultural and other differences such as gender and gender
relations, Race
and race relations, socio-economic class,
ethnicity and cultural identity, sexuality and sexual orientation, normalcy and
deviance portrayed in the text should be studied. Moreover, the intertextual
comparison and context must be analysed in order to interpret the text in
relation to a larger body of cultural forms and texts genre considering works
by the same author or similar images in different media.
Thirdly,
the historical and reception analysis deals with reception and consumption of
the cultural text. It looks at the intended audience and their expectation as
dictated by the reception context including the sociocultural,
political-economic, or developments in society. In addition, the reception
history should be accounted especially how the text has been received, read,
interpreted, used, inhabited, and appropriated into people’s lives. Thus the
resonant images and myths connected to the text should be examined. Moreover,
this analysis should look at how specific audience, reception cultures, or
particular groups of people read, use, take up different cultural forms to
create their own subjectivities & identities.
This paper analyzes Grisham’s novel The Firm from the cultural perspective
using the production approach. It looks at how the political, economic, social,
cultural contexts of America in the 1990s shaped the novel industry of John
Grisham, by focusing on The Firm
which is the object of this discussion. In other words, it examines the novel
in order to discuss how the the ‘text’ reflects larger ideological and
political-economic realities in which it was produced? That is why an overview
of the American detective police and criminal justice system in the 1990s
necessitates to be stated in this theoretical framework section.
According
to Michael Parenti, from the late 1960s, the American detective police was
developing its surveillance system techniques in order to cope with excessive
crimes. Thus from the 1970s, it was revealed that FBI intelligence was not
adequate to tackle the increasing organized and secret crimes. It was revealed
that some of the FBI were corrupt and rather than coping thoroughly with the
investigation of crimes, they rather were interested in political activism,
incorporated in crimes organization, or idle spending time in leisure
activities and hazardous sports (Parenti 140). Consequently, the American justice
and security system initiated an FBI Counterintelligence Program (COINTELPRO) with
the aim to eradicate the vices of the former agents. The new FBI agents had to
work closely with private organizations based on the governments. The
techniques which they had to use to track criminals include among others, using
“forged documents, illegal break-ins, telephone taps, and undercover
provocateur” (Parenti 140). Therefore, by 1971 as confirmed by the
American Justice Department Centennial book, FBI was using new techniques to
track mobsters using court authorized wire-taps, jurisdiction over mob infiltrated
business, the ability to target entire families and their leaders, etc. In the
mid1970s FBI was able to target high-level criminals like La Cosa Nostra by using secret informants and breaking the codes of
silences which had hitherto protected crimes organizations such as mafia. The
new techniques also resorted to using individual FBI agents who became members
of mafia in order to gather invaluable intelligence and using cooperating
businessmen as witness. Using these new strategies, some crime organisations
such as mafia families in New York city were convicted (Centennial History 69).
In the 1990s, FBI investigations involved electronic surveillance and
undercover agents, state and local agencies, telephones intercepts and hidden
microphones in cars, homes, restaurants, and social clubs. They were able to
pick up, for example, conversation on the street with higher power of
surveillance microphones. But on the other hands, criminal organisations such
as Cosa Nostra, Mafiaso, Rico, were
using new strategies to counteract the power of the FBI and CIA investigations.
These crime organizations were using electronic eavesdropping, grand jury
supoenas, reprehensible criminals, mass criminals, and draconian punishments
among its members, computer systems. The “motorcycle gangs”, for example, worked
in associations and owned shops and made use of a good surveillance equipment
such as bugging and countermeasure equipment. They also owned financial
companies to supply them with weapons. Likewise, they practiced philanthropic
acts in order to dupe people. The FBI had further to improve its mechanisms by
operating through a network of FBI, federal, state agencies, and local law
agencies (Veno 2007). It is against this backdrop that John Grisham wrote his
novel, The Firm and got it published
in 1991. The novel is a legal thriller which captures the despair of lawyers
who lose temper in front of luxurious and opulence lifestyles of the megafirms.
The protagonist Mitch is an attorney who cannot resist the tempting flowerful
and puppeteering facilities that a mafia-owned tax firm provides to its
employees and the huge amounts of money the FBI grants the legal witnesses who
can help them to track the mafia organization. In addition to the detective
police and legal system context that is articulated in the novel, the
conspicuous consumption, excessive spending, and hard work which characterized
the American society in the late 1980s are also captured.
2. Genre and Formula Analysis
In his book entitled Adventure,
Mystery and Romance: Formula Stories as Art and Popular Culture (1976), John Cawelti mentions that “a literary formula is the structure of narrative or dramatic conventions
employed in a great number of individual
works” (Cawelti 14). Considering its
usage, a formula refers to a conventional way of treating some specific or
person, that is any form of cultural archetype found in the literature on the one hand. On the other hand,
formula denotes specific representation story type, that is archetype or
pattern that appeals in many different cultures. Since the concepts of genre
imply particular sorts of story patterns and effects and universal or
transcultural conceptions of literary structure, they can be referred to as
archetypes. Hence there is a resemblance
of usage of formula, genre, and archetype in popular culture. Cawelti maintains
that formula literature being a kind of literary art can be analysed and
evaluated like any other kind of literature.
Based
on the nature of formulaic art which combines escapism and conventional
experience, Cawelti distinguishes three main approaches which can be used to
account for the cultural function of literature. The first cultural
significance of literature can be explained by the impact or effect theory
(Cawelti 22). Impact/effects theories assume that literature influences
society. Simply put, impact theories are based on the assumption that literary
forms and contents have a direct impact
on human behaviour. This approach “treats literature as a moral and political
problem” and “seeks to determine which literary patterns have desirable effects
on human conducts” (Cawelti 22). The second theory about the cultural function
of literature is a deterministic
hypothesis. The deterministic theories of literature assume that literature as
cultural art and practice is generated and shaped by some underlying dynamics
of the society and psychology. In other words, the function of literature is to
cope with the needs of a social group or individual psychological needs. The
last function of literature as a cultural practice or art is based on the
symbolic or reflective theories. This approach of the literature assumes that literature consists of attitudes, symbols,
and myths that shape the perceptions and motivations of the society in which it
is produced. In other words, literature reflects and shapes culture. Cawelti
summarizes the cultural function of literature by considering that formulas are
collective cultural products which articulate a pattern of fantasy which is
acceptable and preferred by particular groups who enjoy them (Cawelti 34). In
this study, John Grisham’s The Firm can
be interpreted from the deterministic. Actually, the novel, The Firm through the criminal manoeuvres
of the social institutions such as the Mafia and the FBI can be viewed as a
detective formulaic literature which dramatizes the “ideology of the bourgeois
rationalism” (Cawelti 25). On the other hand, the detective novel The Firm expresses the psychological needs
of the individuals represented mainly by Mitch who struggle to resolve in
fantasy their repressed and latent desires.
On the subject of formula and genre classification,
Cawelti considers literary formulas as moral fantasies that can be classified
under five categories: adventure, romance, mystery, melodrama, and horror (Cawelti
37). Firstly, the adventure story is centred on a hero that overcomes obstacles
and dangers and accomplishes some important and moral mission. As for the
romance, its main characteristic is the development of love relationship
usually between man and woman. Concerning mystery, the story consists in the
investigation and discovery of hidden secrets which lead to some benefits for
the characters with whom the reader identifies. The third category, that is
melodrama is concerned with violence and sensationalism of a plot revolving
around malevolent intrigue and violent action. In melodramas, the credibility
of the character and the plot is sacrificed for the sake of violent effect and
emotional opportunism. Finally, the horror formula which is also referred to by
Cawelti as alien beings and states formulaic literature looks at stories which portray the depredations and ultimate
destruction of some monster. In fact, horror also referred to as science
fiction is concerned with stories of alien beings and states in a bid to
knowing the unknowable through objectification. In this classification done by
Cawelti, The Firm can be classified
under the category of mystery formula or genre. The novel is concerned issues
of secret investigation and discovery. The FBI is engaged to track the Mafia
which also uses tactics to foil the detection of the former. But later in the
novel, both the institutions of FBI and the Mafia concentrate their efforts on
detecting the traces of Mitch who has vanished with their money after promising
to serve them in their conflictual goals. Then The
Firm is a crime story which according to the description done by Cawelti
fits in the crime mythology formulaic genre of the late twentieth century.
According to Cawelti, late twentieth century crime formula literature are Godfather archetype stories which are characterized
by a fascination in large-scale crime organizations such as the Mafia, Cosa
Nostra, the Syndicate, other forms of crime organizations which are powerful
and godlike. The popular crime formula, as Cawelti maintains represent a new
fascination with long-scale criminalities and new social attitudes like the
corruption of governmental institutions and agencies and the failure of modern
civil “institutions to provide a sense of security and fulfilment for the
individuals” (Cawelti 76). John Grisham’s The
Firm articulates these realities of the contemporary societies. As
Pringle mentions in John Grisham: A
Critical Companion (Pringle, back cover). The firm like other thrillers of
John Grisham tackles contemporary social and legal problems by depicting legal system and lawyers with
their virtues and vices. In fact, FBI is represented as a governmental agency
which is corrupt and cooperates secretly with the criminals of the Mafia firm
of Bendeni, Lambert, and Locke. Therefore, Mitch and his family find themselves
caught between the wickedness of both these governmental institutions and the
civil organizations which instead of improving his life seek to ruin it for
their interests.
3. Postmodernist Theory and Identity
According
to Dominic Strinati (2004), postmodernism describes the emergence of a society
in which the mass media and popular culture are the most important and powerful
institutions, and control and shape all other types of social relationships.
Popular cultural signs and media images increasingly dominate human sense of
reality, and the definition of the self and its relation to the world. The
emergence of postmodernism is linked with consumerism and media-saturation
which had been vital aspects of the modern development of industrial and
capitalist societies. That is why postmodern society is accompanied by the
proliferation of middle-class occupations and construction of personal and
collective identities.
Dominic Strinati considers that
postmodernist theory assumes that social reality is reflected and can be
defined through mass media (Strinati 211). This suggests that media is a mirror
to the social reality. In Strinati’s view, there is a relationship between
economy and popular culture because consumption is influenced by popular
culture and vice versa. Consequently, postmodern culture emphasizes the style
at the expense of the substance. In other words, postmodernism is based on the
designer ideology. The theory of designer ideology refers to the tendency in
the postmodern society whereby people increasingly consume images and signs for
their own sake rather than for their ‘usefulness’ or for the deeper values they
may represent (Strinati 215). Moreover, with the postmodernist theory treats
art as integrated into the economy because it is used to encourage people to
consume through the expanded role it plays in advertising. Put otherwise art
becomes a commercial good in its own right. Likewise, postmodernism looks at
popular culture as a culture sans
frontiers or culture outside history. In fact, due to the speed and scope
of modern mass communications and the relative ease and rapidity with which
people and information can travel, time and space become less stable and
comprehensible and more confused and incoherent. Moreover, postmodern approach
to cultural studies believes in the decline of metanarratives, that is, in the
consumer and media-saturated society, ideas such as religion, science, art,
modernism and Marxism which make absolute, universal and all-embracing claims
to knowledge and truth are in decline.
Concerning
the issue of identity and the postmodern approach of popular culture, Douglas
Kellner, in Cultural studies, identity
and politics between the modern and the postmodern (2003), argues that identity is highly
unstable and or has disappeared. For him, postmodern identity is a market
identity which is fabricated by the simulacrum power of the media. The role of
the image in the construction of identity in contemporary societies is very
significant. Actually, through the power
of media, images and look can be manipulated. In popular culture, fashion,
cosmetics, diction, and style can easily transform identity. Image identity
market succeeds to modify character’s
look and give them a new identity (Kellner 333).
For
the analysis of the postmodern artifacts, Kellner is against the view by many critics that popular culture is
fundamentally flat and one-dimensional and void of meaning. Rather he argues that postmodern culture
images, fragments, and narratives are saturated with ideology and polysemic
meanings. Therefore, television and other forms of media culture play key roles
in the structuring of contemporary identity and shaping thought and
behavior. This implies that postmodern
cultural analysis should not be one-sided and limited to the form and image
alone, or simply in abandoning media culture analysis by considering it as
“black holes, implosion, or excremental culture” void of content. The analysis must take into account “both
form and content, image and narrative, and surface and the deeper ideological
problematics which are represented in a particular context in order to
apprehend the polysemic nature of images and texts which require the
possibility of multiple encodings and decodings.
Postmodernist
criticism and the theory of identity are relevant to the analysis of John
Grisham’s The Firm. In fact, the
characters in the novels use media and popular cultural images to manipulate
and track individuals and social institutions.
Discussion
This
section sets out to examine the discrepancy between the postmodernist cultural
images and the surveillance of social institutions and individuals. It
comprises two subsections. The first section is titled “Surveillance through
Mass media and Consumerism in The Firm”
and is concerned with the manipulation and control of institutions through mass
media and hedonism. The second section is titled “Countersurveillance in a
Consumer and Media-Saturated Society in The
Firm”. It looks at the deception of postmodernist surveillance through the
change of identity
1. Surveillance through Mass Media and Consumerism in The Firm
The
novel depicts the surveillance and manipulation of social institutions and
individuals through consumerism and media saturation. The author represents a
middle class society where crime organizations such as the Morolto mafia family
and the Palumbo mafia family have disguised their identity and own firms and
other financial companies such as hostelry, resorts, banks, transportation
companies, etc. The mafia companies entice their employees and innocent members
through luxurious lifestyle in order to cover the criminal deals of the
organization. The protagonist of the novel Mitch McDeere is a new law school
graduate eager to better his life in his hedonist society. He is recruited in a
mafia law firm of Bendini, Lambert & Locke which is located in Memphis,
Tennessee, USA. The mafia firm ensnares
him with a lot of money and a hedonist life style. After checking his
application file, the mafia leaders are assured that Mitch is low class man who
aspires to high standard of life and henceforth a good candidate for the legal
manoeuvres of the firm.
They knew that he had been born in
poverty in Kentucky and brought up by his mother after his father's death. They
knew that she had wasted the money the army gave her after her eldest son's
death in Vietnam, and that only the other brother, Ray, had cared for him. They
knew that he had won a place at Western Kentucky University because he was good
at football, and had graduated top of his class. They could see the poverty
hurt, and that he wanted to climb away from it (Grisham 1).
This
quotation implies that America in the end of the twentieth century is
undergoing the wounds of its national and international fights against communism.
Impoverished individuals and families, Orphans, and widows cope hard with poverty
and consequently suffer exploitation by the wealthy middle class. The middle
class plays on the talents and aspiration to wealth of the poor people in order
to dupe them through a hedonist life of modern fashion and style. According to
Artemy M. Kalinovsky and Craig Daigle, the economic crises caused by the
anti-communist war of the late 1970s was accompanied by rising urban crimes in
American cities (Kalinovsky and Daigle 375). But later in the 1980s, with the
Reagan revolution, the anti-communist war aftermath was flourished with the
development of “mass media, shopping, and ever-entertaining recreation […],
satellite television, digital media communications and social networking”
(Smith 147). In this connection, in the novel of Grisham, Mitch and his wife
are delighted in the big salary that the firm offers and the big car, modernly
furnished house, and other facilities which are provided to the staff. In
addition, the leisure time in planes, hotels, and beaches that the firm bestows
on its employees and their families make Mitch lose temper.
Oliver Lambert took with him Lamar
Quin, an associate who had been with the firm for seven years, and offered
Mitch $80,000, a new BMW and help in buying a house. Mitch was interested, of
course. Lambert invited him down to Memphis to visit the firm. He said he would
send the air tickets. The figure of $80,000 started Mitch and Abby dreaming
(Grisham1).
This
quotation points to the postmodernist character of the American society which
is fictionalized in the novel, The Firm.
In the words of Strinati, postmodernist societies prosper with new occupations
which are coupled with consuming massively the abundantly produced commodities
(Strinati 225). Thus Mitch is not only given a lot of money thanks to his hard
work, he is also induced into leisure time of conspicuous consumerism. Through
this enticement of the employees of the firm, all that a hedonist heart can
desire is provided. Mitch and his wife cannot resist the sensual consumption. Mitch
has “a wonderful week with his wife” whereby they stay in another house. His
wife can enjoy beach lounging in “string bikini” (Grisham 43). The change of
life style of Mitch and his wife ensures the American postmodernist ideology
and lifestyle of the 1980s and 1990s. The kind of work that Mitch does, makes
the family distinguish in the social hierarchy of America. It follows that
Strinati’s point that postmodernist occupations among others teaching, accountancy
and finance associated with increased consumer credit influence the ideologies
and lifestyle of middle class people, is true to the American society in the
late twentieth century (Strinati 225). In addition to big salary and occasional
promotions, Mitch has access to credits and loans to conform to the life
standard of his employers. That is why Mitch’s house is supplied with
everything the family have dreamed about because Abby, the wife goes mad buying
furniture while Mitch, the husband drives the new black BMW all around the town
in order to get used to the area (Grisham 9).
In
the postmodernist society, the luxury provided to the workers is beneficial to
the bankers and factory owners. Therefore, as represented in The Firm, it “is important to the firm
that their members stay happy and look rich” in order to increase its clientele
(Grisham 2). Then the firm brings in a new man, throws money at him, buys the
car and house, takes him to the Caymans and puts him to work on their legal
clients (Grisham 32). This means that in the postmodernist society, style and
consumerism are coupled. That is why the secretary of Lomax, a private
investigator of Mitch is “blonde, about forty years old but still sexy”. She
wears “short skirts and a low-cut blouse” and keeps “crossing and uncrossing
her legs while Mitch” is “waiting for Lomax to get off the phone”. John
Grisham, here, is pointing to the postmodernist woman. According to Douglas
Kellner, the postmodernist woman “is the epitome of style and power who can
“easily take in and enjoy her phallus” in a “highly suggestive and inviting
fashion code “(Giroux 74). This shows explains why in the 1980s and 1990s
American women are used as advertisement beautiful and showy images to promote
enterprises. Femininity is then then used in The Firm as advertising style and fashion. This is the reason why
the members of the firm are allowed to increase secretaries as they progress
positively in their employment. By using a sexy and showy secretary, Leomax
proves in the word of Strinati that contemporary customers are made to
increasingly consume images and signs rather than utility and value of products
(Strinati 213). In addition, the sexy and attractive forty-year-old woman shows
the power of style to change identity in the postmodernist culture as Douglas
Kellner proves through his study of
images of identity in the Miami Vice
popular television series (Kellner 247). Other manoeuvres used by the firm to
bring in business is to encourage “steady marriage” and “Babies” (Grisham 3).
Wives and children constitute a consuming social class which enable the firm to
manipulate its members and partners. But consequently to this postmodernist
lifestyle, Mitch notices the dislocation of the traditional family institution.
The employees who are loyal to the rules of the firm like Avery fail to cope
with their relations to their spouses because of working hard to accumulate the
excessive money and promotions (Grisham 9). Even Abby the wife of Mitch gets
bored because her husband works long hours and cannot satisfy her need of “a
flesh-and-blood person next to her” (Grisham 14). This points to the
persistence of modern industrialism and capitalism despite the postmodernist
culture which is accompanied by erosion of morality and metanarratives in the
American society. Grisham here touches the tendency of postmodernist consumer Americans
to reject the narrative of life-long monogamous marriage. Thus Mitch and Avery
go out to make love with some women on the beach leaving their legal wives at
home. The demand of the firm to his members to keep secrecy is also pertinent
to the consumerism of the postmodernist culture. The decline of metanarratives
in the American society is illustrated by the explanation made by Terrance, an
FBI agent to Mitch.
'Three things. First, don't trust
anyone. Second, every word you say, at home or in the office, is probably being
recorded.' Mitch watched and listened carefully; Tarrance was enjoying this.
'And the third thing?' he asked. 'Money doesn't grow on trees (Grisham 16).
The
writer takes us to the skepticism of postmodernism in America. From the
perspective of Strinati, the postmodernist man is critical of absolute truth,
knowledge or any social practice which goes with universal validity. Therefore,
Grisham captures the “big lies and disinformation” of the American society in
the 1990s. America was undergoing what Kellner refers to as the lies of the
media to support the Bush administration and his military deployment in the
Gulf (Kellner 201). By pointing to corruption and crimes in the American
society, the writer is pointing the weak points associated with consumerism in the
postmodernist societies. Grisham links erosion of metanarratives with the
advertisement and consumerism of the postmodernist culture. In the mafia firm,
the new attorneys are not told the truth about the legal cases which they
treat. They have to serve the super-rich law firm of Bendini, Lambert and Locke
in secrecy for many years, accumulate money, fulfill their dreams of opulence
before they learn about the truth of the criminal families (Grisham 32).
Apart
from consumerism, people are controlled through mediatic techniques. The Firm articulates electronic network
surveillance of employees by the super-rich law firm of Bendini, Lambert and
Locke. Grisham is articulating in his novel the mass media dominance in the
1990s American society. As explicated by Bruce Carson and Margaret
Llewellyn-Jones in the 1990s, mass media markets proliferated in the United
States and shaped social structures and ideologies (Carson and Llewellyn-Jones
2). Mitch learns about the mediatic observation of the firm members through his
contact with an FBI agent called Terrance.
He learns that all his actions and movements have been recorded by the electronic
surveillance system of the firm. The firm leaders have his pictures with his
wife in the bed, his private outings, etc. Talking about the identity of Mitch,
DeVasher, the head of Morolto mafia family security confirms to Lambert, one of
the leaders of the firm that Mitch is trustworthy and cannot in no way act as a
traitor to the crime organization. The
writer mentions,
He played Lambert a tape of phone
calls from Mitch's hotel room in Memphis to Abby in Massachusetts. “Very loving
conversations, you see, Ollie,” DeVasher said with an evil grin on his face.
“They're just like a newly married couple. I'll try to get you some bedroom
pictures later. I know how much you enjoy those. She is lovely” (Grisham 5).
Grisham
through this quotation captures the power of the popular cultural images in
providing information. Postmodernist cultural images cross borders and travel
over the limit of space and time. Due to time and space immediacy in the
contemporary society as Dominic Strinati calls it, from his office, DeVasher
can access the images of all the employees of the firm even those of their most
private actions. He can follow their phone conversations wherever they are and
get a panorama of their love and sex affairs even when they are in beds. The electronic surveillance is facilitated by
a connection system of satellite phones and bugs. The surveillance system is
connected to monitoring cameras which take pictures. Thus in addition to images, the firm security
service can access printed pictures of the actions of the members and partners.
In the following lines, Mitch is warned against contributing to the leaking of
the secrecy of the firm. He is even forbidden to tell it to his wife. He is also
warned against his behavior with women outside wedlock by DeVasher.
He reached inside his jacket and
pulled out an envelope. Mitch opened it nervously. Inside were four
photographs, black and white, very clear. On the beach. The girl. 'Oh, my God!
Who took these?' Mitch shouted at him. 'What difference does that make?' Mitch
tore the photographs up and let (Grisham 35)
As
time goes by, Mitch’s relations to Terrance, an FBI agent are also filmed. The
surveillance system displays Mitch’s shopping in a shoe shop with Terrance. This
is an indication that the firm security departments labors too much to ensure
that the members are observed everywhere. Warning Mitch against interacting
with Terrance, DeVasher alerts,
'We've got plenty more upstairs,'
DeVasher said calmly. 'We don't want to use them, but if we catch you talking
to Mr Tarrance or some other FBI agent, we'll send them to your wife. How would
you like that, Mitch? The next time you and Tarrance decide to shop for shoes,
think about us, Mitch. Because we'll be watching.' (Grisham 35).
Mitch
does not know that each corner in the rooms of his house has a tiny microphone
attached to an invisible wire which connects it to a hidden receiver which is
placed in the roof and which transmits signals to the central office of
DeVisher (Grisham 12). But beside the mafia, Terrance is also dangerous because
he is a spy of the Mafia in the government. His attitude relates to the American
situation in the 1990s when it was discovered that some FBI agents were
secretly working with crime organizations in Boston (Stich 73).
The power of the communication
system in The Firm relies also on modern
machines which do perfect and rapid photocopy of documents, files, and the keys
of house and car doors. While Mitch and
other members of the firm are invited to festivities, the agents of the firm
security penetrate their cars and drive to their places to install surveillance
equipment implements using photocopied keys to enter their cars and every room
of their houses. Moreover, the surveillance operation of the firm uses bugs
which are installed in the cars, phones, desks, and offices that the members
and their spouses use (Grisham 31). This is in bid to ensuring full observation
of the members and their details about their lives and how they relate to the
world around them. They are observed everywhere in all their actions and
movements by a special communication network which reports to the central
office all the details of their life including their actions in the offices of
the firm, dialogues with their spouses in the bed, their leisure time outside
the firm with their relatives and friends. In the house of Mitch for instance,
a “tiny microphone, no bigger than a fingernail”, is “stuck into the mouthpiece
of each phone in the house”. The signals from these microphones are connected
to a receiver in the space under the roof of the house (Grisham 12).
'Shut up, DeVasher,' Lambert said, and
then, after a pause, 'I wish we could find his brother Ray. We know everything
about his family, and hers, but we just can't find this brother.' 'Don't worry,
Ollie,' DeVasher said. 'We'll find him (Grisham 5).
As
this dialogue shows, the surveillance extends from the individuals to their
families and friends. To get full observation of Mitch, the mafia firm follows
the actions of his brother Ray who is in prison. This is an indication that the
modern mass media communication crosses borders.
The
Morolto crime family is rich and collaborates secretly with other mafia
organizations and some members of the security police and court. The crime
families practice financial works whereby they entice individuals with
luxurious lifestyle in order to conceal their criminal deals. The relations of
the mafia family to the civilians and government institutions are like those of
mafia families of the New Orleans in the 1990s. Mallory, in Understanding Organized Crime, confirms
that the mafia families led by Carlos Marcello owned motels, restaurants, and
other financial companies in Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas, California, Mexico,
and Caribbean Islands and had ties to presidents, judges, and other mafia
groups. With this wide organization and power, it was able to manipulate
politics, crime, and business (Mallory 2012). The individuals and their
families are caught between the tensions of the criminals and the police
security systems who use the same means to manipulate them for their opposite
objectives. The detective police also offer a lot of money to civilians that they
judge susceptible to provide genuine witness of their employers and criminals
and use media to decipher the disguise of the mafia and share information among
them and their partners. In the novel, it is mentioned,
Tarry Ross was known to the Palumbo
family as 'Alfred'. The fewer people who knew his real name, the better; then
his employers, the FBI, would never hear about his profitable extra work. The
Palumbo family decided to help the Morolto family. Lazarov told them he wanted
some information out of the FBI. The Palumbos said they would do it for half a
million. Lazarov agreed, and Vinnie Cozzo from the Palumbo family met Ross.
'Make it quick, Cozzo,' Ross said nervously (Grisham 50).
By
pointing to this intimate cooperation between criminal organizations and secret
use of hired professional members of FBI, Grisham is emphasizing the time and
space immediacy of the modern mass communication.
Under the influence of FBI agents,
Mitch starts suspecting the Bendini, Lambert & Locke mafia firm due to the
electronic surveillance, computer monitoring, and printing which they use to
observe from afar all the employees. But he cannot escape the tensions between
the two opposing institutions who both use modern mass communications to
control each other. Attempting to involve Mitch in FBI investigation, Voyles
convinces Mitch that the firm is “the firm is not what it seems”, and that it
is rather “part of a very large and very illegal business” which is “owned by
the Morolto crime family in Chicago”, the Mafia (Grisham 31). The FBI agents
Terrance and Voyles after revealing Mitch the surveillance operation of the
mafia central office, they threaten him to work with them in order to arrest
the criminals or and warns him that in case he refuses, the conviction will
start with him because he is already identified as a criminal lawyer by their intelligence.
Despite the “rapid international flows of capital, money, information, and
geographical space” used by the mafia families and FBI agencies for mutual surveillance
and that of members, Mitch and his family run away undetected (Strinati 214).
This leads to the irony of the surveillance in the postmodernist society.
2. Countersurveillance in a Consumer and Media-Saturated Society in The Firm
The irony of surveillance
in the postmodernist society is implied in Strinati’s assertion that “the speed
and scope of modern mass communications, and the relative ease and rapidity
with which people and information can travel” is used to change style and
identity (Strinati 214). In The Firm,
Mitch foils his opponents by playing on consumerism and media saturation of the
American popular culture. Mitch’s consent to back up the FBI in the hunt of the
Morolto mafia family relates Grisham to the federal and state campaigns against
crime organizations in the United States between the 1980s and 1990s (Hendley
87). His role is like the mafia masquerade of the FBI agent Joseph Pistone who
infiltrated the mafia in order to do in-depth investigation and contributed to
the incarceration of many Mafiosi (Hendley 88). Thus Mitch succeeds to
penetrate to mafia crime files and secrecy and forwards them to the FBI because
of mass media. Likewise, he deceives the dominance of media used by both his group
enemies by mastering popular cultural images such as telephone, style, film,
newspaper, television, photography, and digital photo-printing and
communication. With this mediatic power,
he is audacious to respond positively to the commission of the FBI which requests
him to help them to get witness document in order to arrest the criminals. The
FBI agents entreat him as follows,
We want you to photocopy files, bank
records, all those documents which we can't reach from the outside but you can.
We need the names of all the staff; we need to know who works on which files;
we need all the information you can give us, about every part of Bendini,
Lambert & Locke. (Grisham 33)
Even though the task
assigned to him is fatal, Mitch counts on the dominance of the mass media to
change his identity in order to succeeds betray the mafia to the FBI. In a
meeting with the FBI agents, Mitch’s wife Abby tells them that the payment will
be done via transfer to a new bank account in Freeport, in the Bahamas, whereas
the crime files and films will be taken from “a storage room somewhere in
Memphis” (Grisham 49). The notification that Abby gives to the FBI agents
suggests that Mitch will use the postmodern rapid circulation of information to
communicate with FBI from his untraceable address. He has to rely on pay phone,
and cyber culture to keep them in touch because he has run away from the firm
before he submits all the needful mafia crime documents to the FBI. He cannot
reveal his address to the FBI intelligence because they have fully paid him,
but he has escaped before he gives them all the crime files. To earn the “two
million dollars” hat the FBI offers for the crime files of the Mafia, Mitch relies
on the culture sans frontiѐre nature
of the modern mass communication and ipso facto agrees to collect all the
documents by using the powerful printing and copying machines and changing his
identity and that of his family so that the mafia cannot trace any sign of
theft. In the process of changing his identity, Mitch confuses both the Mafia
family and the FBI by a simulacrum of divorce played with his wife. When
addressing his brother Ray, he mentions,
Call Abby at her parents' house. Tell
her to drop everything and get out. She doesn't have time to pack a suitcase.
Tell her to catch a plane to Mobile. There she signs in at the Perdido Beach
Hilton under the name of Rachel James.' 'OK. Anything else?' 'Yeah […] She's
calling herself Rachel James.' He gave Ray the number of the Brentwood
apartment. 'Remember that number, Ray. If I'm not here, someone called Tammy
will be. You can trust her. Take care of my (Grisham 59-61).
As
this quotation indicates, in addition to changing his marital status, Mitch
communicates with his wife Abbey with a new name Rachel James and from now on
they have to use new cell phones and new numbers rather than the bugged
apparatus because the mafia has decided to kill them. Moreover, Mitch himself
adopts a new name Sam Fortune to deceive the recording technology system. Likewise,
he conceals his collaboration with the FBI by corresponding to Terrance via the
name of Judge Hugo and calls him from a pay phone which cannot leave any trace
of his identity (Grisham 59). As for Tammy, she has changed her identity
documents and passport. In addition, she leaves her place Nashville and goes to
stay in Knoxville wherefrom she can communicate with Mitch and his family undetected
by the surveillance operation of both the FBI and Morolto mafia family. This change of identity in the novels
corroborates the idea of Toby Miller that “in a postmodern image culture, the
images, scenes, stories, and cultural texts of media culture offer a wealth of
subject positions which in turn help structure individual identity” (Toby 258).
In the risky task to sell
the Mafia to the FBI, Mitch is helped by his friend, Tammy the secretary of his
deceased private investigator who also changes her identity to deceive Avery
one of the lawyers who holds crime files. She meets him out of Memphis in
Rumheads Bar wearing a bikini which hardly covers her feminine physical
features and introduces herself to him using a fake name that the electronic
system cannot associate to any of the member or partner of the firm. While
sleeping with Avery, Tammy steals from Avery’s pockets the keys and rushes to
his office to take all the files from the cupboard during that night. By means
of the most modern machine which does ninety copies a minute (Grisham 53), Tammy
has only to push the 'Print' button and get the machine make perfect copies of all
the crime files from every Avery’s office while Abby goes out in her car and has
the keys copied quickly (Grisham 48). With the same power of the modern
photocopier, Mitch changes the number of the files because the photocopier requires
programmed number for each crime file to be photocopied. Then Mitch uses an
innocent file number because he is not allowed to treat crime files. By changing the identity of files, the
photocopy allows rapid flow of information.
Style
in clothing, haircut, and make up is also used to deceive the investigators.
When Lamar Quin, an FBI local agent perceives Ray entering a shop, his face is
darker than what photographs display in the newspapers. In addition, he looks
different because of he is wearing sunglasses (Grisham 70). In the same way, in
their running away at Blue Tide beach, Abby is walking east along the beach dressed
to look like a tourist, while Mitch and Ray are dressed all in black to pass
unidentified (Grisham70). This attitude of Mitch and his family members shows
that Grisham’s novel reflects the American popular cultural images of the late
twentieth century. The change of identity through style and other postmodernist
make up indicates that, as Toby sustains, popular cultural “images project role
and gender models, appropriate and inappropriate forms of behavior, style and
fashion, and subtle enticements to emulate and identify with certain identities
while avoiding others” (Toby 258).
In the furtherance of representing
the instability of identity in the postmodern society, Grisham shows that while
the mafia and FBI are chasing Mitch and his group and sending their picture to
social media to help them lead the investigation, they observe them through
radio, television, and newspapers and change more and more their identities. In
fact, the hunt of Mitch and his family is done by the police who are guided by
information and pictures published in a newspaper (Grisham 64). In reaction to
the spread of this news, Mitch, for instance, changes his address by avoiding
any identification from his bank account. He withdraws all his money from the
bank of the mafia family, the Royal Bank of Montreal in Grand Cayman and wires
some of his money to his mother's bank, some to Abby's parents' bank, some to
Tammy’s, and some to his new account in Zurich bank (Grisham 63). Moreover, while
the police and the Mafia partners watch the news to further investigations,
Mitch and his company also watch them to know new tactics to use. The writer
mentions,
Mitch, Abby and Ray watched the news
on TV. Now that the police search had moved away from Panama City Beach it was
more dangerous for them. The police only wanted to arrest them; Morolto's men
wanted to kill them. Early the next morning Mitch sat back down on the floor
among all the boxes (Grisham 63).
This
proves the irony of media in the postmodern culture. The rapid flow of
information makes any secret easily leak. Even those who are not supposed to be
part of the communication, they can access it and take precautions in advance.
Telephone and
transportation technology are combined in the search of Mitch and his family.
Lazarov, the assassin of the mafia organization uses his mobile phone to give
orders to “his men to use every available boat and stay out at sea, waiting”.
In parallel, DeVasher, the communication operator commands on phone his cops.
Likewise, Mitch and his family inform Tammy about their abode and rent a green
Ford van to drive southward in order to avoid any detection by the FBI agent,
Fat Tony Verkler who has coordinated his men to drive southward (Grisham 68).
When Mitch finishes collecting all the information concerning the mafia
organization, he sends soft files and attached videos to the FBI. Through a
phone call, he also notifies them that they will find hard copies in a car
parked in front of a shop at Blue Tide Hotel. Tammy also telephones the FBI
agent Wayne to get the last files and films “in Room 38, Blue Tide Hotel,
Panama City Beach” (Grisham 68).
In addition to the
dominance of mass media, Mitch and his group jam the surveillance networking
and teamworking of the Mafia and FBI by playing on the consumerist minds of
people. Avery is made to sleep by Tammy who offers to make love with him in a
hotel and poisons his drink to make him sleep deeply for ten hours. Then during
his deep sleep, she removes office keys from his pockets in order to enter the
metal cupboard wherein all the crime files are arranged. When she finishes
photocopying all the files and the keys, she joins Avery in the bed, takes off
her bikini top, slides into bed beside him to camouflage her designs (Grisham
48). This flexibility of identity through postmodernist cultural images relates
the novel to the American society in the 1970s and 1980s when the development media
culture was used to dramatize the economic and political ideologies under the
regime of the President Ronald Reagan (Kellner 126). Mitch succeeds in fleeing
by relying on the hedonism character of people. Each time he is suspected to be
the escapee, he uses a lot of dollars to feed the consumerist onlookers. Thus,
Mitch gives Andy, the clerk at Blue Tide hotel a thousand dollars each day to
prevent him from revealing his presence in the hotel room (Grisham 68). Andy’s
greed for money epitomizes the 1980s when following the Reagan recession
unemployment became great and object of the media (Kellner 137). Even when a
Mafia cop enters the hotel, Mitch gives additional dollars to Andy so that he switches
off the light to prevent the mafia investigators from entering his room. Moreover, Mitch and his family’s lying in hotels
watching Television programmes and reading newspaper ensures the power of consumerism
to hide identity. They cannot be easily identified as running away people. In
associating consumerism and identity fragmentation, Grisham embraces the idea
of Phillips that postmodern “identities are expressed through individual and idiosyncratic
styles of consumerism” and tend to be instable, fragile, and continuous
(Höllinger and Hadler 31).
At the end of the
thriller, Mitch emerges triumphantly like Rudolph Guliani, the American
Attorney for the Southern District of New York who following the Organized
Crime Control Acts of the 1970s, fought against the mafia and other crime
organizations, especially the RICO family from 1983 to 1988. Rudolph Guliani
contributed to the incarceration of many mafia members in New York (Hendley
86). So Mitch enabled the Mafia to track the criminals and hailed them to
prison. At the end of the story Mitch and his group can read in the newspapers
the incarceration of fifty-one present and past members of the firm and the
dismantlement of the mafia families organization. His earning money from the
investigation deal and his break with advocacy and law profession ensures
Grisham’s articulation of his personal career. Actually, as mentions John
Grisham started writing popular fiction after quitting Mississippi legislature
in 1983 (Pringle 2). His dissatisfaction with law profession and his joy
through cultural industry are projected in the The Firm, that is in the story of Mitch. Thus Mitch’s excitement
with a boat and delight in the money as he leaves the law career to spend the
rest of his life sailing with his family in luxury among the thousands of
islands in the West Indies and his exclamation that he “never really wanted to
be a lawyer” parallels Grisham’s professional life (Grisham 73). Finally, with the
use of consumerism and media saturation to betray the mafia firm to the
government security institution, Mitch can be aligned to a professional
investigator who does successful intelligence and earns lots of money from it.
Conclusion
In
the contemporary culture, mass media dominance and consumerism make social
identities flexible and instable. Through this fragmentation of identities, the
surveillance of social institutions and individuals become ironical. Then the
Foucauldian myth of “superpanopticon and hypersurveillance” is demystified
(Lyon 113). Through a postmodernist study of John Grisham’s, The Firm, it is found that the
postmodern individual or institution can easily change his identity and
therefore and passes unidentified by the hypersurveillance of the media
saturated society. In addition, it is also found out through the phenomenon of
identity manipulation, the consumerist images of postmodernism are fragilized.
This, however, does not deny the power of mass media and consumer capitalism and
their social ideologies. In fact, as it is represented in the novel, Mitch the
hero deceives the surveillance operation of his firm and that of FBI by using
the same power of media communication and hedonist enticement that his opponents
use.
From
a production approach of Grisham’s thriller, it is found out that the American
society in the late twentieth century experienced consumer capitalism
especially with the “Reagan revolution”. But the crimes which multiplied during
the anti-communist war were eradicated by the electronic and digitalized
surveillance of the security police and justice system. On the contrary, crimes organizations such as
La Cosa Nostra and RICO developed and strengthened their ties to civil and
government institutions. The mafia families owned commercial institutions,
philanthropic institutions, business centers, etc. Therefore, it was possible
for individuals to be caught between the tensions of the two opposing powerful
surveillance of the FBI and Mafia families. Through the theories of Dominic
Strinati and Douglas Kellner, that is media saturation and consumerism, style
and identity in postmodern society, the analysis of Grisham’s The Firm shows that control and
surveillance through popular cultural images have limitations in themselves
because the observer is also subject to observation. Mitch the hero of the
novel with his wife, his brother, and his secretary, disguise their identity by
playing on the hedonist character of the society and the dominance of mass
media. Following Cawelti’s deterministic approach of literature, from the
discussion of the issue of surveillance in The Firm, it is found out John
Grisham is representing the American postmodern society in the 1980s and 1990s
and his own experience in American law and his turn to cultural entertainment
market through popular literature.
Works Cited
Carson, Bruce and
Margaret Llewellyn-Jones (Ed.). Frames
and Fictions on Television: The Politics
of Identity Within Drama. Exeter: Intellectual Books, 2000. Print.
Cawelti, John G. Adventure, Mystery, and Romance: Formula
Stories as Art and Popular Culture.
Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1976. Print.
Giroux, Henry A. Postmodernism, Feminism, and Cultural Politics: Redrawing Educational Boundaries. Albany: State University
of New York Press, 1991. Print.
Grisham, John. The
Firm. Essex: Pearson Education
Limited, 1999. Print.
Hartley, David and
Maurice Whitehead. Teacher Education:
Curriculum and change. London: Routledge,
2006
Hendley, Nate. The Mafia: A Guide to an American
Subculture. California: Greenwood Press, 2013.
Print.
Höllinger, Franz and
Markus Hadler. Crossing Borders, Shifting
Boundaries: National and Transnational
Identities in Europe and Beyond. New York: Campus Verlag, 2012. Print.
Kalinovsky, Artemy M. and
Craig Daigle (Ed.). The Routledge
Handbook of the Cold War. Oxon: Routledge,
2014. Print.
Kellner, Douglass.
Cultural Studies, Identity and Politics
between the Modern and the Postmodern.
London and New York: Routledge, 2003.
Print.
Lyon, David. Surveillance Society: Motoring Everyday Life.
Philadelphia: Open University Press, 2001.
Print.
Mallory, Stephen L. Understanding Organized Crime 2nd
Ed. Sudbury: Jones and Battlett Learning,
2012. Print.
Miller, Toby. A
Companion to Cultural Studies. Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishers, 2001. Print.
Parenti, Michael. Superpatriotism. San Francisco: City
Lights Books, 2004
Pringle, Mary Beth. John
Grisham: A Critical Companion. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1997. Print.
Pringle, Mary Beth. Revisiting John Grisham: A Critical
Companion. Westport: Greenwood Press,
2007
Smith, Christian et al. Lost in Transition: The Dark Side of Emerging Adulthood. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. Print.
Stich, Rodney. Crimes of the FBI-Doj, Mafia, and Al Qaeda, 2nd
Ed. Nevada: Silverpeak Enterprises, Inc.,
2010. Print.
Strinati, Dominic. An
Introduction to Theories of Popular Culture, 2nd Ed. London:
Routledge, 2004. Print.
The FBI: A Centennial
History, 1908-2008 https://books.google.com › History › United States › 21st Century (accessed on 1st June
2017)
Veno, Arthur (Ed.). The Mammoth Book of Bikers.
Philadelphia: Running Press, 2007. Print.
No comments:
Post a Comment