A Painted House

Rating:
Summary: A little boy and his secrets
Review: In the autumn of my eighth year, mention "cotton" and "cotton candy" was what probably came to mind. In A PAINTED HOUSE, Luke Chandler picks the stuff - real cotton that is. He lives on a farm in the Arkansas Delta with his parents and his father's parents, Pappy and Gran. Pappy rules the household - until Gran speaks. It's now September and there're 80 acres of King Cotton to harvest, for which job the Chandlers hire the Spruills, a poor family down from the "hill country", and10 Mexican migrant workers.

Set in the fall of 1952, A PAINTED HOUSE is a splendid period piece of that time and place. Its enthralling magic is that it's life seen through the eyes of 7-year old Luke, who spends five and a half days each week of the picking season under the hot Southern sun plucking the cotton bolls until his fingers bleed. In the evenings, he and the men folk listen to radio broadcasts of their beloved St. Louis Cardinals baseball team led by the great Stan Musial. On Saturday, there's the weekly bath and the afternoon movie matinee in the nearby settlement of Black Oak. Sunday is for churchgoing at the local Baptist house of worship.

Needless to say, this is a coming-of-age story, or a least the very beginning of one. To date, Luke's major worry has been for his 19-year old Uncle Ricky, his father's brother, off fighting in Korea. Now, his mind becomes preoccupied with things he's seen unbeknownst to his elders - two murders, a childbirth, and his first sight of a live and pretty, naked, young woman. Some things are best kept secret from adults, especially the last:

"If (the girl) caught me, she'd tell my father, who'd beat me until I couldn't walk. My mother would scold me for a week. Gran wouldn't speak to me, she'd be so hurt. Pappy would give me a tongue-lashing, but only for the benefit of the others. I'd be ruined."

And, because of the dynamic that exists between parents and offspring, there's the keeping of secrets because:

"(Mother) told me many times that little boys shouldn't keep secrets from their mothers. But every time I confessed one, she was quick to shrug it off and tell my father what I'd told her. I'm not sure how I benefited from being so candid."

A PAINTED HOUSE is not a "thriller" in the usual sense, but I couldn't put it down nonetheless. (I usually read two books at a time, one at home and one at work during my lunch breaks. I brought this novel home to temporarily shove aside the second book.) By the last page, I was strongly connected with the members of the Chandler clan and wished them well. Having said that, one of the book's shortcomings was author Grisham's failure to adequately describe the physical appearance of the Chandlers - I couldn't picture them in my mind's eye. Moreover, the storyline eventually concludes with too many loose ends. This begs for a sequel. But since that isn't Grisham's style, my curiosity shall likely remain unsatisfied.

Finally, that part of the plot dealing with an unpainted vs. painted house was unnecessary. Grisham probably intended some profound symbolism here, but it was wasted on me.

Rating:
Summary: Grisham Can Tell a Story Without Lawyers
Review: A Painted House is a languid, meandering book where big things do happen. In a departure for John Grisham, those big things are not the focal point of the story.

This book is a reflection on the tough lives of small farmers and those they employ. In 1952 Arkansas, the Chandler family is eeking out a living season to season with cotton and the help of hill people and Mexicans during harvest time.

Seven-year old Luke is the narrator. His world is the Chandler cotton farm, not very good low land in Arkansas that gets flooded first when there is too much rain. Living in an unpainted clapboard house with his grandparents, his mom and dad and dreams of playing for the St. Louis Cardinals, Luke is part of the operation, having hoed in the spring and put on his own sack to pick 100 pounds of cotton a day during harvest time.

As they do every year, the Chandlers take on help to get the cotton crop in before the rains. Help this year is a band of a dozen Mexicans who stay in the barn loft and the Spruill family, "hill people" who camp in their front yard -- right on the spot Luke uses for home plate when he imitates Stan Musial's moves to the porch radio during Cardinal broadcasts.

Both groups have characters that make the seven-year old world wise before his time. Although incidents occur which could well be the point in a suspense thriller, Grisham uses them as background in this story. In A Painted House, he is seeking to show the most difficult season (harvest time) in the difficult world of a typical farm family through the eyes of a seven year old.

Grisham succeeds. Although this is a slow book, with a gentle pace (where it even has a pace), the author's handling of dialogue and description is superb. The telling of the story is what is on display here, not the story. The book is an enjoyable diversion where the reader gets a good mind's eye view of the life of one little boy in 1950's Arkansas.

Rating:
Summary: Plot's slowing, Granny, so bring on another natural disaster
Review: Luke Chandler, the protagonist/narrator, comes across an adult in a seven year old's skin. The dialogue is forced and at times beyond credulity. Luke chats up everyone as though they are his equal and has more world-wisdom than people three times his age.

The weather as a plot device gets a little thin. Winds, rain, extreme heat...oh, wait! We haven't had a tornado yet this season, so let's throw in TWO tornados. Then rainstorms and flooding that last for days. All of which would be somewhat more believable were it not that all this happens in less than six weeks. The book leaves you wondering why anyone would attempt to farm in Arkansas, as God surely has the entire state in his crosshairs.

Real farming is more tedious and less adventurous.

If you like extreme weather punctuated with brief episodes of multi-racial violence, this novel is for you...up until the last forty pages or so when it gets slower and slower and finally just runs out of steam at the end.

And don't worry about the multi-racial violence part. The only people who get killed in this book are the standard Southern White Guys Who Had It Comin'.

Rating:
Summary: Great Coming of Age Tale, From An Unexpected Source
Review: John Grisham has written many books about lawyers, trials, juries, courtrooms, etc. over the years, but he goes for a change of pace with this book. This exceptional novel tells the tale of seven year-old Luke Chandler, a farm boy from rural Arkansas. His family picks cotton for a living, and this year, 1952, seems like it will be the perfect harvest, bringing more money so that Luke's family can buy their land. But Luke's sterile existence is broken apart when he witnesses a killing and a murder, he learns things that he would rather have not known, and grows up because of it. People who are used to reading Grisham's legal thrillers might not be kept interested because of its slower pace, but they might be interested in the fact that this book is based on actual events from Grisham's childhood. We can identify with Luke as he is put in a position that adults wouldn't want to be put into, let alone a child. This is an awesome book and I would highly recommend it.

Rating:
Summary: CONVINCED OF GRISHAM'S ABILITY
Review: I always thought that Grisham was a good writer, but this book has certainly pushed him beyond excellent. A good book is something that touches inside and this book certainly did that. Being a fellow who grew up an urbanite during the 70's and 80s,this book took me body and soul to another time and place...rural America in the early part of the 20th century. It amazed me how I could relate to this tale, yet it was enthralling. Wonderful work.

Rating:
Summary: A Nice Read
Review: "A Painted House" is very different from Grisham's other work. Unlike the author's other novels that mostly deal with mystery and involve lawyers and legal issues, this is a nice, layed back read. The novel tells us of the story of a young boy's life in the rural south. Picking cotton day by day under the hot sun is not an easy task for seven year-old Luke Chandler. Once his father brings the "hill people" and the Mexicans home to help for the season, things don't get any easier. Grisham makes you feel like you're experiencing life in the eyes of a little boy. He takes you back to the time of innocence and shows you how hard it is to grow up all over again. Luke is forced to experience things far too beyond what he should be dealing with as a child. He witnesses a fight that later becomes a huge issue, and has to hide knowledge of an important family secret. The way he deals with things is inspiring, and with the help of the talented writing of John Grisham you'll be in tears of joy by the end of the novel. If you liked Grisham's many other novels, but are the type who likes to sit down and read a pleasant novel that can easily be related to, "A Painted House" is a nice read.

Rating:
Summary: Just goes to show that Grisham can write.
Review: I ran across A Painted House from a friend who had it and he told me that it was worth reading. So I brought it a couple of weeks ago, and I have to say that this is a very interesting tale. Luke is our narrator (unlike all Grisham tales when the tale is told through third person), he is just another kid who works on his father's cotton farm in Arkansas. Then one day, while getting workers for their farm, Luke then meets this worker named Hank; a vicious man who has a explosive temper. Then while in town, Hank kills two people, and when the town sheriff comes to the farm, Luke denies seeing Hank picking up a two-by-four and beating them to death in front of the whole town. The story starts out slow, but this is a book that you want to read slow because you dont want it to end. Some people who reviewed this book thought it was slow like molasses on a winter day. This is a book worth reading just to read on a slow summer day and you dont rush through this book to see what happens, things happen slowly just to bring the reader into the world of 1952. This is definitely Grisham's best.

Rating:
Summary: Rivetting in places, slow in others
Review: Overall I loved this book and would recommend it. A few times it seemed the pace slowed down enough to bore me a bit. By the by, though, it was hard to put down and well worth the time it took to read.

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Summary: Warm and wonderful
Review: Understandably this book ruffled some feather when it first appeared. Die-hard Grisham fans who were used to his legal thrillers didn't know what to make of it, and those who had never tackled a Grisham novel were probably pleasantly surprised. But when the dust settled, we came to know and respect this novel for what it is--a novel of the land; a departure for Mr. Grisham; a warm and wonderful story; and a nice piece of literature in the same vein (though considerably smaller) as "The Grapes of Wrath." A far cry from "Tobacco Road" this book harkens more in its writing style to "McCrae's "Bark of the Dogwood" or even "To Kill a Mockingbird." This book, along with a few others of Mr. Grisham's remain my favorites. And while I'm a fan of his thrillers also, this books "resonates" more than his others. This one is a keeper.

Would also recommend another great read: "The Bark of the Dogwood" by Jackson McCrae

Rating:
Summary: Superb
Review: "A Painted House" connected with me emotionally, and I thoroughly enjoyed the story for several reasons. The story is told through the eyes of a seven-year-old boy, Luke Chandler, who lives on a cotton farm in Arkansas with his parents and grandparents in the 1950's.

One reason that the story is so good is that it paints a great portrait of the inner workings of a family. Each family member fulfilled a certain role, and though they often got annoyed at each other, they obviously loved each other.

Another aspect of the story that I enjoyed was learning about the difficulty of earning your living as a farmer. The Chandlers were subject to forces of nature, labor prices for hired hands, and cotton market prices in order to earn enough to live. I came away with a newfound respect for people who earn their living this way.

Part of living in this small farm community was a much different social life than what most of us have now. Church was an integral part of their lives, and gossip traveled very quickly. Farm families looked forward to traveling carnivals, street fights and trips to the store as major social events. Families in this setting were also very dependent on their neighbors in times of need, especially since many of them did not own telephones.

Another theme that was woven into this story as a part of the Chandler family's life was that of baseball. Listening to Cardinals games on the radio was a bonding experience between three generations of men, and I felt connected to them because I also love the sport. Hearing stories about real players from the 1950's made the story that much more enjoyable to me.

Besides the portraits of family, farm living, and baseball, I also enjoyed learning about this time in history. The Korean War was claiming young American lives, TV was a new and fantastic invention, and cars were still in their infancy stage as an American staple.

Obviously, these portraits would not make a great story unless they were told in an engaging way. As a testament to the power of the art in the story, I felt literally compelled to keep reading until I reached the end. I have not even begun to tell of many of the characters and adventures for fear of giving too much away, but I feel like I know everyone in the book, and I find myself expecting to run into one of them in real life.

I am sad to say goodbye to the Chandler family and the other participants of the adventures found in "A Painted House." I recommend you get acquainted with them.