Grisham is a prolific American author who has sold over 300 million copies worldwide. As of 2023, he has an ongoing run of 28 consecutive number-one bestsellers in fiction, has been awarded the Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction twice, and has been recognized by the Library of Congress with a Creative Achievement Award for Fiction. Grisham was born in Arkansas, and despite neither of his parents receiving any formal education, they encouraged him to attend college, where he eventually studied law. Before becoming a full-time writer, Grisham practiced law for almost a decade. He also spent time as a politician and was elected to the Mississippi House of Representatives as a Democrat from 1983 to 1990. Despite leaving politics for writing, he remains politically active and serves as a member of the board on the Innocence Project, which works to exonerate people who have been wrongly convicted. Grisham has been a fan of basketball since playing in high school and is a season ticketholder for the Virginia men’s team and the North Carolina women’s team.

Grisham loosely based Sooley on a handful of real-world stories: a South Sudanese team that came to play in a showcase tournament in America; Mamadi Diakite, who now plays for the Cleveland Cavaliers but comes from Guinea and played college basketball for Virginia; and Len Bias, a collegiate basketball player who was touted as the next Michael Jordan but died of an overdose a few days after being drafted by the Boston Celtics.

Regarding his writing style and the aim of his works, Grisham claims that what he writes is not literature or literary fiction. Instead, he sees himself as writing popular fiction—page-turners that sell well and aspire only to be entertainment. He has also stated in interviews that while some of his books deal with social issues, his reader base has a wide range of political beliefs, so he tries not to force his political opinions on them. Both aims—entertainment and relative apoliticism—are evident throughout Sooley. Despite the serious subject matter, the novel retains a relentless pace and doesn’t linger on even the most unfortunate or tragic moments. Likewise, while the content of the novel is inherently political in many parts—the civil war in South Sudan, immigration policy, global inequality—Grisham explores these issues without pointing fingers or suggesting actionable solutions. His training as a lawyer becomes clear in these moments, as the tone of his writing remains neutral and news-like despite the heavy, political subject matter. However, at times, this neutrality can strain reader immersion when dealing with difficult topics like the ones in Sooley. In a scene where Samuel is stopped by two policemen. Grisham ratchets up the tension, clearly playing on the epidemic of police violence against Black youths, then undercuts that threat by making the policemen friendly basketball fans. This bait-and-switch style may alienate readers on both ends of the political spectrum.