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by: John Grisham  Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Dewey Decimal Number: 813 EAN: 9781856867443 Format: Audiobook ISBN: 1856867447 Label: Random House Audiobooks Manufacturer: Random House Audiobooks Number Of Items: 4 Publication Date: February 01, 2001 Publisher: Random House Audiobooks Studio: Random House Audiobooks Related Items: Alternate Versions: Click to Display Browse for similar items by category: Click to Display Editorial Review: Amazon.com Review: 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 Product Description: The hill people and the Mexicans arrived on the same day. It was a Wednesday, early in September 1952. The Cardinals were five games behind the Dodgers with two weeks to go, and the season looked hopeless. The cotton, however, was waist-high to my father, almost over my head, and he and my grandfather could be heard before supper whispering words that were seldom heard. It could be a "good crop". Thus begins the new novel from John Grisham, a story inspired by his own childhood in rural Arkansas. The narrator is a farm boy named Luke Chandler, age seven, who lives in the cotton fields with his parents and grandparents in a little house that's never been painted. The Chandlers farm eighty acres that they rent, not own, and when the cotton is ready they hire a truckload of Mexicans and a family from the Ozarks to help harvest it. For six weeks they pick cotton, battling the heat, the rain, the fatigue, and sometimes, each other. As the weeks pass Luke sees and hears things no seven year old could possibly be prepared for, and finds himself keeping secrets that not only threaten the crop but will change the lives of the Chandlers forever. A Painted House is a moving story of one boy's journey from innocence to experience. Average Rating:
 Rating: - Enjoyed experiencing a different time and placeThe book was very well written and has a lot of historical detail to back up the setting. I felt like I was living on a cotton farm back in 1952 where the days were slow and simple but at the same time critical events happened and people had to deal with them. My only criticism is that Luke's age did seem much too young for some of his behavior but it allowed him to straddle between being the innocent child and adolescent. The resolution of the book seemed to be that family farms were ... Read More Rating:  - GoodA Painted House is surprisingly different from the rest of Grisham's novels. There are no lawyers, no courtroom drama, no kind but mockingly stern judge, no corrupt rich men and no broke protagonist. This book is about country side and cotton fields, droughts, the indomitable spirit of farmers, their hope for rain, the simple, provincial life of small-town America and a little boy's rite of passage. It made for an enjoyable read especially since i could relate to most of it, having been born into an ... Read More Rating: - Goodness! No Lawyers! Shudder, Shudder. Well, by now most of the entire civilized world has gotten the word that John Grisham wrote a book and did not mention lawyers one time. As you can see by reading these reviews, this has gotten some people's nose out of joint. I suppose these people feel that like Sysyphus, forever rolling his honking big rock up the hill; Grisham should be condemned to forever write of sleazy lawyers and their shenanigans. Now lawyers here, but we do have some might fine writing. This story takes place ... Read More Rating:  - I'm not saying I could do better....I'm just saying it wasn't JG's best effort. It's not a legal thriller, nor any kind of a thriller, and it's actually a style I usually like. Slow, southern, meandering- like a punchless Faulkner story. As with any review, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but let me tell you why I rate it so low. First, 3 stars isn't terrible, but it puts me at the low end of the reviewer spectrum so I feel obligated to explain. It's certainly not that it's not well written; Grisham is a pro and has a lively ... Read More Rating: - A good storyI enjoyed the book but the ending could have been better. Also, the story could have been shorter to reach the same conclusion. The story began to drag toward the end. However, the characters were very interesting. And the story was told in great detail with a lot of humor attached. This book is worth reading. Just don't expect a stellar ending. 
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