I can very much identify with the farm families in this book. I grew up on a farm and was expected to do many of the chores Luke did. I did not pick much cotton but as a girl I had plenty of garden chores. Picking tomatoes, butterbean, peas, corn, okra were expected of me and my siblings. My Daddy hired pickers to pick cotton and tobacco, but we did our share of that too especially tobacco. I strung tobacco on sticks and help take it off after curing it in the barns. My Daddy worked at a paper mill beginning in the 50's and farmed too. He burned the candle at both ends you might say so his family could survive. All of his children except one graduated from college and had good jobs. Farm life is tough and there cannot be any slackers or someone will not eat. I have always been appreciative of my life on the farm. It taught be how to be a worker that did not quit until the job was done. A Painted House is one of Grisham's finest . I couldn't help but wonder if Ricky got home and if the baby was really his. It does not mention the law as in attorneys and courts. It brings in justice and doing for others. I really liked it and highly recommend it.Read full review
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned
This is Grisham's first deviation from the world of legal thrillers and a very refreshing read. The story is about a rural Arkansas cotton farming family in the 1950's. The story is but a snippet of the family's life and should be approached as such. During the story you are transplanted to the family's cotton farm adn it's struggles and the connections made to the migrant workers on the farm. When the story comes to a close, you leave the family unsure of what is to happen in their future. While this does leave you wanting more, you at the same time reminesce over what you shared with them. This is a good read and the story is very well written. The story relaxes you as you read it, but it will be over before you know it and you will bac to your hectic life.
I watched the movie version of this book a few years ago & really liked it. I did not think it was a great movie but it was a very good movie. After reading this wonderful literary piece I tried watching the movie again & it is all I can do to force myself to watch another 10-15 minutes every day. After reading the book I now I believe the movie is not good at all. There is so much stuff left out of the movie; even more than usual when books go to the big screen. On top of that the viewer didn’t get into the thoughts of Luke Chandler nearly as much as they would if reading the book. This is not meant as a movie review however so I’ll continue with my book analysis. This book is one of the best I’ve ever read. I loved the fact that the story took place just a few dozen miles from the area where I have lived my entire life but without a great story line that would not have mattered a whole lot. I have been through Black Oak Arkansas a few times but will never travel there again without thinking of John Grisham. Before, I only thought of the 70’s rock band Black Oak Arkansas but they will be a second thought from now on. The book mentions several north east Arkansas towns including Jonesboro several times as well as Paragould 3 or 4 times. This is one of those books I will recommend to anyone I talk with in the future if the subject of books or reading comes to light. This book will make the reader appreciate the hard work that went on in the cotton fields over 50 years ago and it will probably make them glad they did not grow up on the Chandler farm. That is until the end of the book and for a few pages the reader will perhaps feel as though they missed out on something special by not living on that farm. I also listened to the audiobook & here are my thoughts on that: David Lansbury does a great job with the different characters in this book. When he speaks the quotes by Pappy he sounds just like a farmer who would not take any back talk from youngins. When he speaks Grams part he sounds exactly like an elderly southern lady. He did such a great job with the different voices at first I thought perhaps there was more than 1 reader involved in this project. That was not the case however; Lansbury did the entire work by himself I believe. He did such a good job I went to eBay & another site that sells audiobooks for the purpose of finding more books read by David Lansbury. Both places returned only one product & that of course was A Painted House.Read full review
It was written with Arkansas in mind . Reminds me of my youth Written well John Grisham is a interesting author
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned
I loved the book as it was written for the early 1950's when life was simple and work was very hard . In the south , cotton was King and it was the lifeblood of all sharecroppers who depended on their cotton to make a good living or at least to stay alive from year to year sharing their crops with the wealthy landowners who lived very well on the sweat and tears of the sharecroppers . There was very little industry thus the hill people and the mexicans picked the cotton . I recall planting and picking the same stoneville cotton wheni was a young man in the 50's and could pick 200 lbs easily in a day without breaking a sweat . That was a total of 6 dollars which we were paid 3 cents per pound picking the cotton . The book tells the story well and it is fact that many families had to leave the country and move to the city to find work . All in all , this book is easy to read and shows how people lived a better quality of life back then . The area of which this book was based is a great deal like the area which i grew up and the times were hard but the family was very close as we ate our dinner in the fields and quit at sundown and like in the book , in the morning we would be so wet for the dew it would be at least 9 am before we began drying out . This is a very good book to read . I think if we could turn time back , all the young people need to try their luck at picking 200 to 500 pounds of cotton a day but that would be an injustice in our screwed up world today . Most likely children who would pick cotton today would be taken away from their parents as most city slickers would think this would be cruel and unusual punishment rather than making a living and make ends meet . We as children pulled a nine foot sack full of cotton , packed well to get another few pounds in the sack . what a life , never will forget it . All of our teenagers need some of this therapy , hard work which will take their minds off of trouble and strife. People were much happier then than now and always will be as myself and others my age knew how to work without any supervision . Again , this book reminds me of the same things we did , raise a large garden every year and filled our freezers up to the top for winter coming on . Hope everyone enjoyed this book as much as i did . When the cotton pickers were made that was the beginning of the end of the picking by hand and technology made it possible for the farmers to end the use of pickers and they faded into history making their way to the steel mills in indiana and the car manufacturers in the north where the majority of the ones who lived on the land moved to for a living . I beleive we permitted technology move too fast too soon which made it much harder on the young ones .Read full review
Loved this story...very compelling and vividly written. You were right there. Gave it to my mother-in-law for Christmas!
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned
It's a fabulous book with a great story! I wasn't sure what to expect initially as I heard that this was supposed to be a different style than most John Grisham books... I was pleasantly surprised by the way he told this beautiful story. It made me feel like I was able to imagine my own grandfathers story was as a Mexican migrant who came to America for farming work (it was as though I was able to see the discrimination he described in his personal stories as a farmer). Grisham did an excellent job of bringing this realistic story to life! I'm not much of a reader to begin with and I was happy to find out that this was a quick and fun read! I highly recommend it~
The setting was in Arkansas where Grisham grew up and attended school. As always, excellent writing, entertaining and hard to put down. This book completes my collection, and I was not at all disappointed. I grew up in this same area, and must be around the author's age, because the setting and happenings were very familiar. A must read for Grisham (or good book) fans.
I bought this book because it was recommended by a friend. And I thank her. The book is narrated by a seven year old boy who, in some ways, is much older and more insightful than your normal boy of that age. He and his family are cotton growers in 1952. They are people who work hard all of their days and sleep hard at night. They hire "hill people" and Mexican immigrant laborers to do their picking in the fall and the story is based on the relationships that build and deteriorate between this mix of peoples. On the one hand it is charming...and on the other it is suspenseful. I am not a fan of John Grisham's regular type of book, but this is entirely different. I recommend it to those of you who like a good solid story.
This book is defintely not a John Grisham thriller but rather a story of a seven-year old boy on a southern cotton farm and his experiences with the hired pickers from the mountains (crazy people here) and the Mexicans and how hard they worked. The book is very well written, easy to read and is a step back in time. It brings back memories of no air conditioning and hot summer nights when you couldn't sleep... I am not finished with the book and I hate to think of it ending.
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