A Painted House

A Painted House
by John Grisham

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Book Summary Information

Author: John Grisham
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2004-02-03
ISBN: 0385337930
Number of pages: 384
Publisher: Delta

Book Reviews of A Painted House

Book Review: Too many secrets
Summary: 5 Stars

"The Painted House" is a gripping story and captivating. The story is interesting because one sees into the customs and cultures and community life of rural Arkansas. Cotton farming is doomed but it still creates vicious cycles: 1. shareholders attempting to own land 2. Hill people and Mexicans seeking employment; the Hill people receive more profits than the farms 3. Weekly trips to the city, lines of credit for merchandise in the store 4. Bank credit for farm equipment and supplies and slow accumuluation of debt 5. Seasonal crop losses to weather. 6. Church devotion to the Baptist Church and the intercommunication associated with gossip and rumour. 6. five pounds of cotton a day is a good picking.

Hill People, father and mother Spruel and children Hank, Tally, and Troll Spruel arrive by truck and trailor too Chandler property. Eli and Pappi meet the Spruels and Pappi settles on a labor price. Pappi instructs the Spruels to setup camp near the grain tanks, instead, they setup infront of the house; Pappi is afraid to ask them to move for fear they will leave; Pappi knows there is a shortage of labor and that the Hill People are becoming richer; the Hill people know this fact and Mr. Spruel demands that Luc fetch a glass of cold water from their fridge; this is a breach of protocol - but Luc keeps the request a secret fearing a verbal confrontation.

Nine Mexican's arrive by truck and the women in the Baptist congregation are outraged, demanding to know why they men did not arrive by bus. The Chandlers receive nine farm labours and establish lodging for them in the barn. A Mexican by the name of Cowboy is feared immediately by Luc.

Work starts early, at 5:00 am, and begins with collecting eggs and milking cows then follows with a heafty breakfast and onto a day in the fields picking cotton. The work is back breaking, the sun is hot, and there is no relief from the heat. The Hill People and the Mexicans keep separate while they work.

Luc has a brother name Rickie. Rickie has a secret. Before Rickie departed for military fighting in Korea, which he was involved in none, Rickie and Libby Latcher had a romance and Libby became pregnant. It was Mrs. Chandler's job to verify Libby was pregnant. Luc spyed on Libby but was discovered by the Latcher boys. It was true, Libby was pregnant. Luc was not allowed to be present at the delivery of the child. The Chandler family assisted in the delivery of the baby while Tally and Luc spied on the operation. Mrs. Chandler declared the baby was a splitting image of Rickie. When water flooded the Latchers homestead in the lower 40, Grandma Chandler summoned Eli to retrieve Libby and the baby; the Latcher were to stay in the barn where the departing Mexicans had stayed.

Hank killed a Sisco boy. Policeman Styks received reports Hank was the suspect. Pappi didn't want Hank to be arrested because it would prevent the cotton crop from being harvested. The Justice system breaks down completely: 1. Hank admits that he fought three Siscos boys 2. Hank says that Luc witnessed the fight. Luc tells Styks that "it was three againt one". Pappi says that "no court would convict a person in a three against one fight". Stykes asks Luc, if Hank picked up a pick of lumber and smashed it into the Sisco boy's head. Hank scares Luc into saying, "no". 3. Stykes decides not to arrest Hank and have him tried for murder. 4. Stykes knows that Luc is lying but holds as credible the testimony of a seven year old. 5. The Chandlers dispise Stykes and believe he does not real work. Luc reflects on the impact this secret will have on him when he grows older.

Troll start painting the house. The Spruels had bragged that they lived in a painted house. Tally and Troll decided to go against Hanks ridicule and started a project of their own to paint the house. Troll with his limp left arm, spent the day around the house, started painting the home with paint that Tally bought at the store using cotton picking money. Eventually, Eli and Luc bought enough paint to complete the project. Luc solicited free labor from the Mexican's during periods of time that rain prevent work in the fields.

Hank decides to leave and return home. Cowboy and Hank were enemies. The baseball game started a unfinished confrontation. Cowboy has struck out Hank and in the next inning Hank pitched a ball that struck Cowboy in the back. Cowboy withdrew a switchblade and attempted to injury a cursing Hank. The fight was broken up. Luc heard Hank say he was leaving. Luc followed Hank and so did Cowboy. Cowboy confronted Hank on a bridge and stabbed him with his switch blade; Luc witnesses the murder; Cowboy captures Luc and swears him to secrecy and on occassion flashes the switch blade at Luc to remind him of their promise.

Tally and Cowboy start a romance. Tally and Cowboy steal the truck, get a bus ticket to Chicago, and refuel the truck. Tally says in their letter that "they plan on marrying". The Spruels decide to leave for home, broken and discourage.

Luc last secret involves his mother and father. His mother tells him that she is pregnant and that his father plans on working in a automobile factory to the North. Luc is promised a chance to attend a big school and play baseball. The family departs the farm, the baptist community, and cotton business.

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Summary of A Painted House

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....

From the Paperback edition.

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

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