Chapters 1–3: The story starts in the final hours of Troy Phelan’s life. Phelan is the tenth richest man in the United States, with a net worth of about eleven billion dollars. His three ex-wives and six children can’t wait for him to die so that they can finally get their hands on his money. However, having other plans for the legacy that he will leave behind, he cleverly masterminds a hoax, causing
his ex-wives and children to believe that they will inherit all of his estate. When they leave after the signing of the testament, he produces another will and jumps out the window, committing suicide in front of his astonished lawyers. In his final will, he leaves his fortune to an illegitimate daughter, Rachel Lane, whom he has been unable to trace. The job of finding Rachel Lane falls on the shoulders of a troubled lawyer named Nate O’Riley, who is at present in a private hospital trying to overcome his addiction to drugs and alcohol. After checking out
of the clinic, Nate flies to Brazil, where Rachel lives in the Pantanal among the primitive tribes working as a missionary and giving medical assistance.
Chapters 4–6: Nate meets his contact in Brazil, a man named Valdir Ruiz, who hires a guide for him. Nate and his guide, Jevy, start to fly to Corumbá, but the pilot doesn’t want to fly into a storm, so he tries to land in
a farmer’s field and ends up hitting a cow. Following
the crash, Nate, Jevy and the pilot wait for a military helicopter to pick them up and take them to Corumbá where they stay at a hotel for the night. Nate ends up drinking several beers, but he convinces himself that he isn’t relapsing into alcoholism. The next day, Nate buys two bottles of vodka. He drinks the alcohol by himself
in his hotel later that night, no longer trying to convince himself that he isn’t on a slide. The next day, he and Jevy board a boat and head down the river in search of Rachel’s tribe. Meanwhile, back in the United States, Phelan’s will is read to his children and their lawyers, who are in total shock. The lawyers convince their clients that they need to fight their father’s will by proving that he was crazy when he signed it. Chapters 7–9: Nate risks his life to find Rachel, traveling along narrow rivers in a broken down boat, and when he finally manages to locate her, she doesn’t want to accept any of Phelan’s money and refuses to sign the papers. However, Nate doesn’t give up because he is determined not to let Phelan’s money-hungry family get the estate. He talks to Rachel about his own problems, and she tries to get him to accept God into his life. Meanwhile, back in the United States, the lawyers are trying to figure out how they can prove that Phelan was crazy when he signed his last will and testament. They need to make sure that Rachel doesn’t get Phelan’s money so that they can get paid themselves.
Chapters 10–12: Nate agrees to tell his partners that he didn’t find Rachel, and then he leaves the village and starts back to Corumbá. However, he soon becomes feverish with dengue fever. After recovering, he goes into a church and prays. He stays in the city and tries to find Rachel, because he thinks that she visited him in the hospital, but in the end he decides that it was just a dream. He returns to the United States, where he agrees to work on one last case—protecting Rachel’s interests in the hearing involving Phelan’s will. He moves to the country and starts to attend a local church, where he helps the minister to build an addition to the basement for classrooms. He is starting to find peace in his life, and happiness. He sends a letter to Rachel’s boss in Brazil, who tells him that she will forward the letter to Rachel in a month’s time.
Chapters 13–15: Nate starts to question the Phelan heirs in court, as well as Phelan’s personal assistant, Snead, who lies in an attempt to get as much money as possible. Nate’s questions start to reveal the heirs’ greed and the lies that are being told to overturn Phelan’s final will. Nate travels to Salem to visit two of his children, and he promises
his ex-wife that he has changed, and he tells her that he wants to make things right and be a good father again. He then visits his other two children and attempts to repair his relationship with them as well, but they are older, so the meetings don’t go as well. Back in the courtroom, the heirs agree to settle on fifty million dollars each, and Nate decides to fly back to Brazil to tell Rachel the news and get her to sign a document. However, when he arrives
in Brazil, he finds that Rachel has died of malaria. He soon discovers that before dying of the disease, she wrote her own last will and testament, instructing Nate to put the money into a trust to be used for the World Tribe Missions around the world. She has seen Nate’s goodness
and realized that his addictions are finished. Nate’s journey along with that of Phelan’s fortune has finally come to its rightful conclusion.
Background and themes
The dangers of greed: The passion for money and wealth and the destructive consequences that come along with this passion represent the main theme of The Testament. Greedy ex-wives and greedy children employ greedy lawyers in pursuit of wealth. They are selfish and dishonest people, and in spite of their wealth, they spend more money than they have, so they are never happy and always need more. The ideal of a family life is destroyed in the process. Conversely, Phelan’s illegitimate daughter has shed the need for money and wealth.
The riches of giving: Rachel Lane’s life in the jungles of Brazil is difficult but also highly rewarding. Her faith and dedication to helping the poor, the hungry and the sick make her life richer than money ever could. She doesn’t want to live in the United States ever again, and she isn’t tempted in the slightest to accept the billions of dollars that her father has willed to her. She understands that the true riches in life come from giving rather than taking. Only when she realizes that she is dying does she take Nate’s advice and accept the money in order to put it into a trust for the missionaries to buy medicine, food and clothing for the people in Brazil and South America. The common Grisham theme—that good always overcomes evil in the end—satisfies readers as they read this fascinating story about the wealth of giving.
Families divided: Grisham explores the nature and frailty of families in The Testament. Due to their incess