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Fiction. Literature. Suspense. Thriller. HTML:#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER �?� Until that September of 1952, Luke Chandler had never kept a secret or told a single lie. But in the long, hot summer of his seventh year, two groups of migrant workers �?? and two very dangerous men �?? came through the Arkansas Delta to work the Chandler cotton farm. And suddenly mysteries are flooding Luke�??s world. A brutal murder leaves the town seething in gossip and suspicion. A beautiful young woman ignites forbidden passions. A fatherless baby is born ... and someone has begun furtively painting the bare clapboards of the Chandler farmhouse, slowly, painstakingly, bathing the run-down structure in gleaming white. And as young Luke watches the world around him, he unravels secrets that could shatter lives �?? and change his family and his t… (more)
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The following might have hated it, but this was a work of art.
It seems the attorney-turned-publishing commodity has reached the point in his career where the annual publication of an
It’s a risky move. Most members of the Rocket-Propelled Bestsellers Club (Tom Clancy, Stephen King, Sue Grafton, et al) rarely stray far from the well-cropped pastures of their established genres. Even when King goes legit (Different Seasons, Hearts in Atlantis), there remain shades of darkness and monsters. So, you’ve got to admire a fellow like Grisham who tosses the dice with a book like A Painted House. Will he disappoint long-time fans expecting more Southern-fried justice? Will he recruit readers who wouldn’t ordinarily pick up a paperback where the words “#1 Bestseller�Â? dominate half the front cover? Will Clancy decide to jump in the fray by writing a bodice-ripping romance?
Only time (and a blitz of hype from GrishamâÂÂs publisher) will tell.
I should mention that IâÂÂve never read any of Mr. GrishamâÂÂs other books (not even on long airplane trips). IâÂÂm only familiar with his works by way of Hollywood (ranging from the horrid A Time to Kill to the excellent The Rainmaker). So, while I canâÂÂt tell you how A Painted House compares to The Brethren, IâÂÂm happy to report itâÂÂs a cotton-pickinâ good read on its own merits. It will never reach solid gold classic status like Harper LeeâÂÂs To Kill a Mockingbird, but it does bring to life a time, a place and a set of characters who burn bright in your mindâ¦at least until you turn the final page and move on to the next book waiting patiently on your bedside table.
A Painted House is the story of a single harvesting season in the autumn of 1952 when the Cardinals are trailing the Dodgers by five games (baseball, that easy nostalgia tool of writers, figures prominently). The narrator is pint-sized Luke Chandler, the only son of Jesse and Kathleen and grandson to Pappy and Gran. One other significant family member, LukeâÂÂs Uncle Ricky, is away on the front lines of the Korean WarâÂÂa constant fret-and-worry for the whole family. TheyâÂÂre a close, patriarchal family who enjoy the rewards of hard work followed by Sunday dinners and listening to Harry Caray announce ball games on nighttime radio.
From the start, I realized A Painted House has the down-home goodness of The Waltons and contains as many of that showâÂÂs gentle pleasures. It also has a fair share of flat-footed prose and corny sentiment. The characters have the depth of an RC Cola bottle (half-drunk, no less) and they move in ways weâÂÂve all seen before. But yet, gosh durn it, I found myself getting caught up in their simple life and its many predicaments.
The story opens as Pappy hires migrant workersâÂÂMexicans and âÂÂhill peopleâÂ?âÂÂto pick the crop on the struggling farm. No single event defines the plot. Instead, A Painted House has many rooms, a series of âÂÂlife bookmarksâÂ? for young Luke. The episodic nature of the novel is due to the fact it was first serialized in Oxford American, the bi-monthly magazine the author publishes. In the space of six weeks and 400 pages, Luke witnesses two murders, a childbirth, a tornado, a flood, his first nekkid girl and his first televised baseball game.
Land sakes! At thirty-seven, I realize IâÂÂve led a pretty dull life by comparison.
Grisham does cram a lot of âÂÂcoming-of-age-ismsâÂ? into this young boyâÂÂs life and the tone occasionally adopts a too-sophisticated veneer, but itâÂÂs all in the name of easy-to-read fiction. DonâÂÂt come expecting Great Literature on the order of that âÂÂotherâÂ? Oxford, Mississippi scribe, William Faulkner, and you wonâÂÂt be disappointed. On the other hand, if youâÂÂre thinking this is going to be just another annual Grisham event, you might be pleasantly surprisedâÂÂkind of like how you felt that moment you saw your first nekkid girl.
Obviously, if you have a story with a child narrator set in the
A child narrator automatically implies that the author has to cheat a bit to get the right mix of immature perception and adult hindsight, so that we believe it's really a child talking to us, but get a story that is interesting enough to retain the attention of an adult reader over a few hundred pages. Grisham evidently doesn't have the Harper Lee touch, and entirely fails to make Luke a plausible seven-year-old. Eleven or twelve he might just get away with, but even allowing for the fact that we're talking tough kids in the depths of the countryside, seven is just too young for the voice Luke talks to us in.
Reminded me of the stories my grandparents told.
wasn't too excited about the three that he's written (so far) that move away
from his established territory of the legal thriller. Last month I read
"Bleachers." This week I finally got around to reading "A Painted House."
I bought
usually buy them hot off the press.
This one is a quiet tale, the story of a poor cotton farming family in
Arkansas in 1952. It is told from the perspective of a 7 year old boy, son
and grandson of the family. It's time to pick the cotton crop and everybody
works like dogs. The family hires some "hill people," a scruffy family
named Spruill, and manages to hire 10 Mexican illegals who came into town on
a cattle truck. It's late summer and hotter than Hell itself. One of the
hill people is a huge hulk of a man with a sour attitude and a chip the size
of a cinder block on his shoulder, and one of the Mexicans carries a
switchblade and isn't afraid to use it. When the coming autumn brings
unseasonal torrential rain, the entire crop is threatened, and with it,
their very way of life.
There's tension and tenderness in this book, and Grisham tells the story so
well I felt like I was there. This certainly wasn't his usual work, but it
was a very satisfying read, nonetheless. I hated to see it end. I'd give
it a 4.