I first realized that literary genres existed-that certain books were, by dint of their cover designs and physical dimensions, suspect-in fifth grade. My friend Adam and I had just been to see The Client, and Adam's father, from the front seat of his minivan, described the John Grisham novel on which the movie had been based as "junk." He said this in the same tone in which he might have described a stop sign as red.
I had, until that moment, been absurdly proud of having read The Client. For weeks I'd been leaving the cinderblock-sized hardcover all over the house, as conspicuously preoccupied by its convolutions as a good-hearted Southern lawyer menaced by the mob. Now I was stricken.
Is it junk?, I asked my dad as soon as I got home.
Well, he said. Sometimes you feel like a cheeseburger; sometimes you feel like a steak.