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A Painted House [Paperback]

John Grisham
3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (978 customer reviews)
List Price: CDN$ 18.00
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Book Description

Feb 3 2004
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 town forever....


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From Amazon

Ever since he published The Firm in 1991, John Grisham has remained the undisputed champ of the legal thriller. With A Painted House, however, he strikes out in a new direction. As the author is quick to note, this novel includes "not a single lawyer, dead or alive," and readers will search in vain for the kind of lowlife machinations that have been his stock-in-trade. Instead, Grisham has delivered a quieter, more contemplative story, set in rural Arkansas in 1952. It's harvest time on the Chandler farm, and the family has hired a crew of migrant Mexicans and "hill people" to pick 80 acres of cotton. A certain camaraderie pervades this bucolic dream team. But it's backbreaking work, particularly for the 7-year-old narrator, Luke: "I would pick cotton, tearing the fluffy bolls from the stalks at a steady pace, stuffing them into the heavy sack, afraid to look down the row and be reminded of how endless it was, afraid to slow down because someone would notice."

What's more, tensions begin to simmer between the Mexicans and the hill people, one of whom has a penchant for bare-knuckles brawling. This leads to a brutal murder, which young Luke has the bad luck to witness. At this point--with secrets, lies, and at least one knife fight in the offing--the plot begins to take on that familiar, Grisham-style momentum. Still, such matters ultimately take a back seat in A Painted House to the author's evocation of time and place. This is, after all, the scene of his boyhood, and Grisham waxes nostalgic without ever succumbing to deep-fried sentimentality. Meanwhile, his account of Luke's Baptist upbringing occasions some sly (and telling) humor:

I'd been taught in Sunday school from the day I could walk that lying would send you straight to hell. No detours. No second chances. Straight into the fiery pit, where Satan was waiting with the likes of Hitler and Judas Iscariot and General Grant. Thou shalt not bear false witness, which, of course, didn't sound exactly like a strict prohibition against lying, but that was the way the Baptists interpreted it.
Whether Grisham will continue along these lines, or revert to the judicial shark tank for his next book, is anybody's guess. But A Painted House suggests that he's perfectly capable of telling an involving story with nary a subpoena in sight. --James Marcus --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Publishers Weekly

Grisham fans will not despair as they discover that this finely wrought tale includes no lawyers. Instead, the author presents an evocation of the life of a young boy growing up on a Southern farm in hard times during the fall 1952 cotton-picking season. Lansbury, an actor of stage and screens, both big and small, brings a sweet innocence to the voice of narrator, Luke Chandler. Luke, a curious, even nosy seven-year-old, witnesses a series of events that range from the dramatic to the profoundly disturbing including a birth, a flood and a couple of killings. Lansbury gives each character his or her own distinctive voice: low and gruff for Luke's grandfather, Pappy; tough and huffy for troublesome Hank, one of the "hill people" the Chandlers hire to help pick the cotton; soft and gentle for Luke's mother. The range of voices helps listeners as he enacts dialogue; but when switching between dialogue and his narration as Luke, Lansbury's performance is far less smooth. Still, Lansbury's is an effective reading of a provocative novel that will please and surprise Grisham's many fans. Simultaneous release with the Doubleday hardcover (Forecasts, Jan. 22).

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Customer Reviews

Most helpful customer reviews
1.0 out of 5 stars Boring April 17 2013
Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase
Boring! I can easily read a book in a day and a half. It took me weeks to finish this book.
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Format:Mass Market Paperback
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'.

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Paint your own house first May 26 2005
Format:Mass Market Paperback
A PAINTED HOUSE was good if you enjoy reading about farm life, and people living with their in-laws and working hard. I did have a problem with the main character. We have a 7 year old boy who should have been about 12 or 13. I have never met a 7 year old with such maturity. He is even interested in teenage girls. The boy worried about everything under the sun and could keep secrets better than a priest. If you can get past the fact, that the boy is too young, and you enjoy a good story about farm life in the south, this one is for you. But I do have to say that I did read one other book with a seven-year-old in it, and that was a little more believable since the child had something like Asperberger's or DID, or some such syndrome where children are more intelligent than they should be at that age (BARK OF THE DOGWOOD-very funny and moving). So don't get too hung up on the kid's age. Painted House is a very well-told tale by one of America's most-loved authors.
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Most recent customer reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars positive
The book arrived in great shape....however the only negative thing is that it took so long.
It took just about a month to get here. Read more
Published on Dec 8 2009 by H. Cutten
4.0 out of 5 stars Really liked it
This book is life changing. I read it a year ago, and I still can't stop thinking about the characters or the wonderful storyline itself. Read more
Published on Feb 6 2005 by Starkweather,
5.0 out of 5 stars You're home now
I agree with another reviewer that this book had a very "Steinbeck" sort of flavor to it. At the time I read it, I couldn't put my finger on that, but looking back it... Read more
Published on July 27 2004
2.0 out of 5 stars What happened to the ending?
1ST let me say I love John Grisham but this was not one of his best works. It was if the story just ended. Read more
Published on July 18 2004 by Tanya McDonald
5.0 out of 5 stars Satisfying Rural Tale
I'm not a fan of Grisham's regular pop thriller schmaltz, so I was reluctant to pick up this one, even though assured that it's a new direction for him. Well, I'm convinced. Read more
Published on July 13 2004 by richard_t
2.0 out of 5 stars Please stab my spleen now
Having corn flakes with powdered milk (no water) isn't as dry as this book. I found myself (much like I did with The Catcher in the Rye)reading only because I kept waiting for... Read more
Published on July 12 2004 by Daniel E. Donche Jr.
3.0 out of 5 stars Ending seemed too abrupt and incomplete.
I was into the book and enjoying the way the story was being told. Unfortunately, the loose ends never got "tied up. Read more
Published on July 9 2004
5.0 out of 5 stars Charming coming of age tale
This is a charming, non-offensive tale of coming of age in Arkansas during the 1950s. Luke is the main character in this Grisham novel that is like no other he has written. Read more
Published on July 8 2004
5.0 out of 5 stars Very good
I grew up in the South (Virginia) and think this is a very entertaining, interesting novel that is unlike anything Grisham has written before. Read more
Published on July 7 2004 by John
4.0 out of 5 stars A house to remember
What probably throws most people off about this book is the fact that it's such a departure from Grisham's other works. Read more
Published on Jun 28 2004
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