A Painted House

Rating:
Summary: A Nice Progression for Grisham
Review: While I generally like Grisham's legal thrillers, I really loved this book. Grisham takes believable characters, puts them into believable situations, and lets the plot move nicely using the people and situations he devised. I'm not from anywhere near the Arkansas of the story, but Grisham described the land and the people of the small town well enough that it was painted as a complete place. Even the minor supporting characters have enough detail to make them seem like people you've met at some time in your life. The conflicts in this book are more subtle than in the typical Grisham book -- between a grandfather's lifetime of farming, and his family's need to grow beyond that life; between the migrant workers and the displaced hill people; between baseball created only in your head from the radio, and baseball on television at the neighbor's house. Luke, as the seven year old narrator seems sometimes a little too wise for his age, but he's a young boy living with adults and a comprehensible landscape of cotton, a small community and carefully delineated rules. I would love to see a sequel with these characters -- Grisham does make them memorable enough that they could easily deserve a follow-up.

Rating:
Summary: A Nice Detour
Review: Obviously not the typical Grisham legal thriller. Most of his books, while entertaining and fun, feature simplistic plots and characters who seem way too ordinary to do such devious things and succeed. This book is different.

For the first time since "A Time To Kill" there are well-drawn characters. Luke is a very likable young man whose curiousity and sense of mischief are never explicitly mentioned but which constantly put him in places he shouldn't be. His family is quite believable, and their interactions are heartfelt and genuine. Most of all, Grisham does a wonderful job evoking the wrenching poverty and calendar-driven lifestyle that characterized the rural South in the middle of the 20th century.

Two criticisms:
First, Grisham struggles a bit with the first-person narrative. Luke is seven years old, but the narration comes from someone far older and wiser. Luke might have been telling the story as an adult; if so, we should be told that.
Second, while I have no problem with the open-ended nature of the ending, too much transition is crammed into the last 20 pages. It's as if he couldn't figure out how to end the novel, so he just decided to wrap everything up really quickly. I call this "Tom Wolfe Disease."

All in all, though, this was very enjoyable -- the first book in quite a while that Grisham didn't appear to write from a formula.

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: 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: 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.

Rating:
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.