... For those of you that are unacquainted with his books, he is an all-American-lawyer-who’s-seen-sense-and-turned-to-writing author. Needless to say, his books focus around lawyers, intrigue and/or criminality. The film ‘The Firm’, with Tom Cruise, was based upon his book of ... Read review
In A Painted House, John Grisham is less concerned with tight plotting and legal ... more
shenanigans than with the roots of that country life which taught him much of what he knows about being human. In the early autumn of 1952, seven-year-old Luke Chandler is...
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InA Painted House, John Grisham is less concerned with tight plotting and legal ... more
shenanigans than with the roots of that country life which taught him much of what he knows about being human. In the early autumn of 1952, seven-year-old Luke Chandler is ...
Postage & Packaging: £2.75 Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days...
Advantages: nostalgic, easy to read, interesting Disadvantages: may be slow-paced for you if you're expecting Grisham's usual style
Wow, a John Grisham book without lawyers. For those of you that are unacquainted with his books, he is an all-American-lawyer-who’s-seen-sense-and-turned-to-writing author. Needless to say, his books focus around lawyers, intrigue and/or criminality. The film ‘The Firm’, with Tom Cruise, was based upon his book of the same name. With ‘A Painted House’ however, he turns his back on the mean, greedy, double-crossing affairs ... ...
Luke, a seven year old boy of traditional Southern farming stock, narrates the book. We enter the lives of his family in September 1952; a significant period, and a significant season.
-The Korean War is leaving families in a perpetual state of apprehension, ensuring that the news is on every evening.
-America is in a state of extreme technological division, with recent advents such as the television making ... more
Wow, a John Grisham book without lawyers. For those of you that are unacquainted with his books, he is an all-American-lawyer-who’s-seen-sense-and-turned-to-writing author. Needless to say, his books focus around lawyers, intrigue and/or criminality. The film ‘The Firm’, with Tom Cruise, was based upon his book of the same name. With ‘A Painted House’ however, he turns his back on the mean, greedy, double-crossing affairs of the sinfully money obsessed world of modern, American, big buck lawyers and plunges back in time to the hard-graft era of the struggling rural 1950s America.
Luke, a seven year old boy of traditional Southern farming stock, narrates the book. We enter the lives of his family in September 1952; a significant period, and a significant season.
-The Korean War is leaving families in a perpetual state of apprehension, ensuring that the news is on every evening. -America is in a state of extreme technological division, with recent advents such as the television making their marks on the nation, yet widening the disparities between rural and urban areas, poor and rich people, Northern and Southern states. -The farming community is in a panic – it is harvesting time.
The above basically sets the context – the book is a reflection of world, national and regional affairs, all presented through a description of a few months in the lives of the Chandler family.
The harvesting is about to start so extra help is needed in the fields. Desperately needed. The Spruills, a rough, troublesome familly of hillbillies, and a group of Mexicans who have travelled up North in search of work are taken on. The three factions (The Chandlers, The Spruills and the Mexicans) all have to interact, live, work and tolerate eachother during this trying time. Tensions soon start brewing between them.... Even within the Chandler family troublesome cracks soon seem to appear in the close-knit family fabric. Torn by the pressures of modernisation, unstable economic conditions and intrenched forces of rural tradition bearing down upon each member, different desires rise to the surface to produce a picture of conflicting views accross generations and personalities, and of the pressures to which some families at the time must have been subject.
The Chandler family reminded me of The Waltons – images of sagging at the knees, dirty pants (well, might as well use the American word) and ruffled, unkempt hair sprang to mind whilst imagining Grandpop Chandler bumbling through the rickety old house. The book is steeped in traditional nostalgia, and absorbs the reader into the lives of this family and the hardships that they have to go through to make ends meet on the farm. It gives one a good taste of the all-American farming lifestyles similar to this. The style in which the book was written took a little bit of getting used to at first – the narration by the boy is done so that you can imagine him relating these events to you – Grisham looks through the eyes of the lad to see what things he would have picked up on and focuses upon how he feels about certain events, and is written in the kind of style in which a kiddie would think and speak. Except this may not be quite the case at all times – I often found myself wondering if a seven year old would really think like that?! If you read it as though the boy is now a man thinking back to the old days parts of it may not quite gel, and if you keep it in mind that this was just a little lad it might be a distraction too. Or maybe I am just very picky. Whatever, it’s best to appreciate that this is a tale, a nice story – you take things too seriously and it can spoil it.
Now, I knew before even buying this that it was going to be different to Grisham’s other offerings. Still, I did not really know how different.
-A Painted House – it sounds so like his regular trademark titles, most of which are short and start with A or The. -The cover of my copy – a distant pair of ambiguous looking buildings, set against a lonely, isolated country backdrop. That implies a sense of mystery in itself, even leading me to anticipate the likelihood of sinister goings on. -The Back Cover Description of my copy – “…heat, rain, fatigue, a killing and the unravelling of a family secret threaten to destroy the Chandler’s hopes…”. That certainly sent my imagination racing ahead to the prospects of potentially life shattering repercussions.
So what, I asked myself, is so different about this book compared to his usual yarns??
With all the above duly taken on board, I started the book anticipating a similar story to what I’m used to from Grisham, but just set in the rural America of the 1950s.
That’s why I wish that I could have read my opinion before reading the book!
The above elements are present throughout but there is certainly a different emphasis, which should change the way the reader goes about reading the book. The emphasis is on story telling – upon description, narration, nostalgia, understanding, scene setting – rather than suspense and intrigue. Here, Grisham has produced a far more meaningful book, which merits a greater sense of appreciation and time devoted to it.
I say that about the time, because this ties in with why my misconceptions marred the book for me – I read it like I would any of his others. I breezed through the slow parts, had my mind on when the fast bits would come and what they could result in, read it quite quickly like it was one of his fast-paced action books and didn’t slow down to take in what I was reading as fully as I would have liked to in hindsight.
All his trademark qualities are present – he does in fact do very well at weaving all kinds of shocking, humorous, unpleasant, potentially catastrophic etc events into his descriptive take on the story, and so this book is not purely a nice narrative about country living in good ol’ US of A. But the difference between this book and his normal ones is this deeper consideration that he has given to the characters, the scene, the lifestyles, the complexities of their ways of making a living.
The reader should know that this book is going to be primarily a story, an account – not a thriller. They should know that they should be appreciating the atmosphere, the descriptions, and the insights that they are being given on this kind of living beforehand, so that they can understand what the book is aiming to convey at the start. Maybe I’m in the minority and everyone else did have the book sussed straight away, but it took me a good few chapters of scene setting, description, and narrative before I realised that this was the way the book was going to stay. I think the marketing of the book was all wrong – it’s not like his usual books and so shouldn’t have been marketed in the same way – greater differentiation would have enhanced the value of the book making people appreciate the new style of writing that he is airing here.
Arrow January 2002 ISBN: 0099416158 490 pages £5.59 from Amazon
Advantages: A story of rural life in Arkansaw in 1950s as through the eyes of a 7 year old Disadvantages: Do not be expecting John Grisham's usual style of writing
...“A Painted House” free with a book club l belong to. Im generally more of a Maeve Binchy girl – heart rendering tales of betrayal through love etc etc. I have read Grisham novels in the past – The Firm, The Client and so on – they generally all have been Mafia based with a court case. I didn’t know anything about his new novel so when l picked it up to read l was assuming something similar. WRONG!
From reading ... ...the eyes of a child – Luke Chandler in 1952. It was his experiences one summer from picking cotton in his grandfather’s fields in rural Arkansas. It is also said to loosely based around Grisham’s own child hood experiences. The line that had me worried was and l quote
“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 ...
purdy 27.08.2001
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of A Painted House - John Grisham
Advantages: Easygoing read; Good plot Disadvantages: some over-stereotyping
...had always considered John Grisham a writer of courtroom dramas and not a writer of ‘day-to-day’ life on an Arkansas cotton farm. And neither did I think he could write with a perceptive eye for characterisation and a detail that involves the reader. He does, and he does it well in A Painted House.
I will raise one arm humbly and admit that I have never read a John Grisham novel. The simple reason being that his genre of writing has ... ...this novel were not a freebie.
A Painted House is narrated by Luke, aged 7, whose family has toiled for years on a cotton farm. The farm is neither owned outright by the family or profitable. During the picking season, Luke’s grandfather hires hill people and Mexicans, who are due to remain on the farm until the cotton has been picked or the St. Francis river floods the fields. He in turn hires the Spruill family and a group of Mexicans. Here ...
HappyBunny 15.09.2001
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of A Painted House - John Grisham
Advantages: Shows John Grisham in a new, but still superb, light Disadvantages: None
...year, but if you are a Grisham fan, beware! This story is like no other Grisham tale other than that it is a superb read. It is apparently based, loosely, on Grisham's childhood.
Whereas his previous novels like The Firm, The Street Lawyer, The Brethren and The Runaway Jury among others have been based on a lawyer or lawyers, The Painted House is about a little boy called Luke Chandler living in rural Arkansas in 1952 with his family who are cotton ... ...like a very exciting tale but you would be wrong. Although it is not as fast moving as Grisham's other novels, there is plenty of action and suspense.
Luke lives with his mother, father, grandmother and grandfather (Pappy). His uncle Ricky is away fighting in Korea. The Chandlers only have a small farm but still need help when it time for the cotton to be picked. The help comes in the form of The Mexicans and a travelling family, The Spruills. The ...
jenifermoore 22.06.2001
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of A Painted House - John Grisham
A Painted House - John Grisham
It’s been a long time since I have been on ciao so excuse my rustiness, so without further ado, I shall get started.
This is, to the best of my knowledge, John Grisham’s twelfth book. I have read all the previous ones bar two (Pelican Brief and Time to Kill.) This book, however, has finally made the leap away from the usual legal thriller though. Most people know John Grisham writes books about lawyers, ... ...for it. This made A Painted House a big risk as it is hard to tell how a writer who has been so focused on one genre can switch and go off on a tangent. I was pleasantly surprised.
The story centres on rural Arkansas and in particular, a young boy called Luke Chandler. He is the son of a farmer and although we are not told, it is safe to assume the Chandler family have been farming for many years. Luke is seven and spends his summer trudging around ...
christopherj84 11.05.2003
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of A Painted House - John Grisham
Advantages: Good basic read. Disadvantages: Left feeling let down.
...reach the bookshops.
As a lawyer who writes 'legal' fiction, Grisham has proved the adage, 'stick to what you know', and utilizes his knowledge to the full. His books have been so successful that most have been made into films, so why has he suddenly decided to ignore his successful formula, by writing A Painted House? Has he suddenly become arrogant through previous success, and believes he can write anything, or could it be that in fact he is ... ...John Deere tractor, two disks, a seed planter, a cotton trailer, a flatbed trailer, two mules, a wagon and the truck."
A Painted House is written in a first person, past tense, narrative, from the perspective of a seven year old boy, Luke Chandler. Luke's family are cotton farmers, and the whole story is centred around the picking season of 1952, which is towards the end of the cotton industry. It is basically a portrait of life in the rural South ...
shabbie 30.09.2001
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of A Painted House - John Grisham
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Advantages: Its better than his other recent efforts Disadvantages: The ending is a complete let down
I have been reading JohnGrisham for more years than I care to recall, I always loved his thrillers and although they became a little formulaic, I still found the legal machinations fascinating. However his recent novels, the dull Bleachers and the dead loss PaintedHouse, left me cold so I thought his return to the courtroom drama of old in The Last Juror would redeem him, unfortunately it hasn't.
The Last Juror is a largely descriptive novel told from the perspective of a young newspaper owner, Willie Traynor, whose first big story is the murder of a young widow, Rhoda Kassellaw. Rhoda it appears has been brutally raped and murdered by Danny Padgitt, a member of the unpleasant Padgitt family who live on an island in Ford county and seem to like nothing better than terrorising and intimidating their neighbours, when not dealing ...
Advantages: No "Edotor's choice", minimal commitment, fixed postage costs. Disadvantages: 75% off all books only applies to introductory offer>
’s latest Dalziel and Pascoe, “Dialogues of the Dead” for £4, and they were prepared to give me a free book too, JohnGrisham’s “A PaintedHouse”, just for the pleasure of having me buy from them. Even with P&P at £3.99 I couldn’t believe I was getting three hardback books for £12.24. I could have bought up to six books. There are other books currently in the introductory offer. In the “Real Life” section there’s Randy Taraborelli’s “Madonna” (that’s real life?), and Jamie Oliver’s “The Return of the Naked Chef” in the Non-Fiction, plus quite a few others, and, yes, they’re all 75% off. My books arrived within a few days, and I was a little disappointed to find that they were all Club Editions (I can’t speak for the other ...
SueMagee 26.07.2001
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Just Good Books
Product Information for "A Painted House - John Grisham" »
Product details
Author
John Grisham
Title
A Painted House
Genre
Thriller
Type
Fiction
ISBN
0099416158; 044029598X; 0712670394
Manufacturer's product description
The tale of a journey from innocence to experience. Autumn 1952, and seven-year-old Luke helps his family pick cotton on the Arkansas farm that they rent. Times are hard, tension is high, and he finds himself keeping secrets that threaten the crop and will change the life of his family forever. See all Product Description
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