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Customer Reviews (10)

read this story
I lack the time to seriously review this work.This story is the first of five parts of a much larger work Carolyn has been developing over the course of several years, and it is one of the best tales i've read in a long time.The School on Heart's Content Road will appeal to anyone who's the slightest bit suspicious of programming, indoctrination, mainstream media, law, or the false dichotomies of left vs. right.The story is told through the eyes of many familiar characters (birds, television, and other people) as well as those with moral positions not generally considered socially acceptable.As such, the story is not some sort of preachy politicized treatise as a dignified celebration of love and the rebellious tendencies of those who don't feel right about the way our culture experiences life, and does so in a gentle, entertaining way.When you read, dig out the journal where you log memorable expressions and quotes-- you'll need some free pages.If you don't have one, start today.

This series is unlike anything Carolyn has ever written, and should be read by young and old alike, regardless of political/ religious inclination.At least, every teenager should be given a copy of this book, because no matter how significant, the public school system or NYT bestseller list will never put it on their reading lists, because it could be considered (gasp) substantive and meaningful.

When's her next book coming out???
I loved the School on Heart's Content Road.It had been a long time since I had read her earlier books (the Egypt series) and I think Carolyn Chute has begun a great series with this latest title.It's been said that it started out as a too-long 2000 page story, and she was able to publish it only because she figured out a way to break it down into 5 books, and for me, the next one cannot come out soon enough.As a reader familiar with the poor and rural Maine landscape, I can appreciate the simple life she recreates at the Settlement and with the extended St. Onge family.Though I disagree with Chute's politics, it's hard not to appreciate the hopelessness that comes out of poverty, especially when presented through the main character Mickey in this book.Touching and heartbreaking.

One of the best writers that ever walked the face of Earth
Mrs. Chute is one of the best writers that ever walked the face of Earth. This is a great book in "The Great Books" sense of the word. It's rich and full and, amazing things seem to happen on every page.Take Rembrandt and Velasquez and Dickens and Tolstoy and have them create a portrait of Western Maine.That will give some idea of what this book like.

Mrs. Chute, however, is very upset that people cannot be farmers the way they were in the Nineteenth Century. Mrs. Chute is a brilliant writer but she is angry. I don't agree with her politics and she doesn't agree with mine. I hope she doesn't mind if I think she has written one of the greatest series of books ever.

Whether or not you agree with Mrs. Chute's politics everyone needs to read all of her books.

Great novel, don't miss it!
Carolyn Chute has the amazing ability to turn the world on its head; she can turn losers into winners, poverty into riches, heroes into villains.She can take you into meanness, misery and squalor, and you walk away feeling cleansed.This is a great novel.

Not up to snuff
I have read all of Ms. Chute's wonderful books written prior to this one and enjoyed them all.I had to slug my way through this one, all the while hoping that it was going to finally take off.It never did. Maybe she needed the money. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (21)

This Book Moved Me
The normal and the horrible come together in this story about the poor. Living in poverty isn't easy, but it can be honorable. There is despair in this book, but there is hope as well. This book moved me and I can't praise it enough.

The Real Maine
"The Beans of Egypt, Maine" is first and foremost a novel about class and money. It is told in two voices. The first is that of Earlene Pomerleau, who lives across an oft-disputed right-of-way from one of the abodes of the Beans, a clan whose family members struggle to make a living (logging, textile mills) and whose public assaults (drunkenness, fights, illegitimate children)on middle class values are a source of fascination to Earlene even as a child. Right from the outset, the details of class are quickly established: the turquoise-blue mobile home ("one of them old ones") of the Beans, with its littered yard, resembles a submarine and its Christmas lights stay up all year. Earlene, on the other hand, whose family has the most tenuous of footholds in the middle class, lives in a ranch house, one of whose bedrooms is "pine-paneled . . . the real kind."

The second voice is the omniscient voice of the narrator detailing the lives of various Bean family members, including Rubie Bean, whose frightening capacity for violence against women and against authority figures is established early. Chute is no sentimentalist, although she shapes Rubie's character with more complexity (his dyslexia, his ties to his children) as the novel progresses. He remains a volatile figure from beginning to end, and even when he disappears from the novel for a time, his logging rig "heaped with mossy wood" sits waiting in the yard. Then there is Beal Bean, to whom Earlene is drawn, despite every warning her God-fearing Gram, a presence in both life and death, has ever delivered. Beal can't make a living, can't even afford to keep his truck driver's license renewed because, as he says, "Takes money to make money." As he contemplates his inability to provide even the barest necessities for his children, the baby screams for milk.

Even though "The Beans of Egypt, Maine" describes a grinding rural New England poverty from which it is impossible, it would seem, to ever escape, there are scenes of tenderness and love. Patronizing terms like "rednecks" or "hillbillies" as applied to this novel are entirely beside the point, a way to disparage what is uncomfortable to read. It is clear that the sorrows of the Beans are not contemptible but tragic. Thus, Roberta Bean, another powerfully drawn character, leaves a bag of skinned rabbit on a neighbor's door as a kindly gesture. (It at first terrifies the neighbor.) Beal brings home to Earlene a discarded cuckoo clock decorated with pinecones.And Rubie, unable to sleep for fear of death, keeps the woodstove going deep into the cold Maine night.

A Powerful and Horrific Tale of a Poverty-Stricken Maine Family
This novel tells the story of the Bean family, a poverty-stricken, incestuous, ever-breeding
clan of Maine folks who have always been there.It tells of the horror and rage of people
and their plight.The book is very hard-hitting and powerful.

One incredible scene really got to me.A girl is watching mold grow on all sorts of hosts in
her closet - fruits, donuts, etc.This is how she got pleasure.It should tell you a lot about
the characters in this book.

LOVED THE BOOK on the second reading
Ms Chute writes what she knows, her life, and for one I neither condemn nor otherwise judge.On content, the book flies.I read from cover to cover.
However, it is not a page-turner.I recommend that you read the second chapter twice or three times, before going on.Just to get to know the names of the characters and such.Seems like the characters changed names or characterazations between the beginning and the end.Some dropped out, and were never heard from again.Some appeared in a different guise.The author should concentrate on a few main characters from beginning to end.The message, the atmosphere and the characters would not suffer if some of the chaff was cut.
In other words, the book is a great start for a beginning writer, but the book is in need of a good editor and an organized re-write.We would call this a "blog" today.But go ahead and buy it and read it anyway.

Stunning
I loved everything about this book. The episodic plot. The population of characters. The brilliant writing. I agree with another reviewer that it has something in common with the Grapes of Wrath.

I did find it amusing reading the critique, here, from one of Chute's friends. I truly don't believe Chute would categorize her book that way at all. I see it as an extremely well written portrait of a class of society; written without one iota of prejudice pro or con; written without any moralizing or any higher purpose than story itself. It succeeds because of those things.
... Read more

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Head of the Letourneau clan of Egypt, Maine, owner of the only profitable business in town, and notorious philanderer, Big Lucien presides over an assortment of oddball characters, from an aging flower child to a country music star. Reprint. PW. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

A Masterpiece of American Literature
Mrs. Chute has done something eternal. It's as though she has carved the Pieta with a chain saw; a Pieta far more moving, poignant and beautiful than Michelangelo's. Society is only a precarious charade against chaos. Your fine manners and social skills aside; we are these people and always have been.

Miracle City is Singularly Miraculous
Carolyn Chute is basically an effortless genious.I loved the imagery of the trailers in the woods with their homey curtains.Thank you, Carolyn.

Egypt,Maine
This is a highly amusing cacaphony of Maine voices.Crowe Bovery's hands are tatooed with auto grease.He has spent three days with the college kid, Jill Luce.He shows up at the house of his boss.The boss's wife doesn't know Crowe has just lost his wife and children in a fire.Crowe smells like a motor running hot.Lillian Greenlaw is an ex-girl friend of Big Lucien Letourneau, Crowe's boss.Lillian Greenlaw is the second wife of E. Blackstone Babbidge.

Big Lucien has a reputation as a man of gold.At Miracle City Big Lucien lets in trailers.The leaders of the town are concerned the place will turn into a slum.Big Lucien's wife is so pregnant she doesn't attend a tupperware party.An old hippy, former wife of Big Lucien, visits.Hippies have big city accents, great hair, and love the outdoors.There used to be hippies on the property living in tents.Big Lucien's present wife's name is Keezhia.One of his former wives, Maxine, mother of Little Lucien among others, lives in Miracle City, too.Maxine works at the mill.

Patty and Armand Letourneau have a son, Severin.Patty works at a bar called the Cold Spot.People are ordered away from Miracle City.They are in violation of a new code.The back cover describes Carolyn Chute as a literary Diane Arbus.I second the characterization.

Depressing
The characters are all really depressing and it is another one of those styles in which improper grammar and a lack of literacy is used all throughout it.It was the style that goes along the lines of, "It was the store.I stood there.I saw.'Hey watcha don' thwat ah thing fer?'He sputtered."


I don't recommend it.

Literary?
"Maxine is alone eating eggs.She has her favorite tape on low, the voice of Waylon Jennings just humming.She swings one cowboy boot in hard happy circles.'Mmmmmmmmm,' she hums along."This a "manipulation of the English language" that should guarantee Carolyn Chute a position in the forefront of literary achievement?I think not.Her affected unpretentiousness in presenting her downbeat characters in economically wrecked western Maine is excruciatingly boring reading.The self-consciously folksy style brings the Letourneaus and the Babbidge's off as a crew of loutish oafs who, like the characters in "Tobacco Road," sit around in their shacks, crowded with wives, husbands, ex-wives, step-children, half-sisters and -brothers, cousins, uncles, doing almost nothing except occasionally shooting each other's guard dogs and lamenting the depreciation of land value.It's labor trying to plough through a narrative in which nothing happens and most details seem random and aimless. ... Read more

Product Description
Young Lloyd Barrington of Egypt, Maine, a Super Tree Man at age ""eight-and-three-quarters,"" is surrounded by a huge and zany cast of characters as he grows up in a world that compels him to become a modern-day Robin Hood. Reprint. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

A Small World Reflects the Larger World
This book is not comfortable reading. Its canvas is tiny (and familiar, if you've read Chute's other novels)---the small rural Maine town she calls "Egypt."Despite the smallness of the place, the scope of "Merry Men" is sprawling. Like a Russian novel, it has a list of characters at the beginning, although, as Chute says, " . . . only a few characters are central. The rest are walk-ons, like the people you see only to say `Hi' to in the P.O. . . . Please do not struggle to keep everyone straight."Given the ongoing constriction of the postal service since the book's publication in 1994, bumping into one's neighbors at the post office is hardly likely, but Chute's advice is good. Find some time when you get into a novel of this length and give yourself up to it.

Chute's style demands that you pay attention. Characters appear and then disappear for long periods of time.Conflicts may be resolved, or not. Characters from her other books show up, and you feel, "Ah, I know you from somewhere," as if they were real people. In a sense, they are. With the surnames one encounters just about anywhere in Maine--Plummer, Moody, Soule, Cole, Plummer, and Bean --they populate Egypt in such human variety that they create their own complete world. One of the protagonists, Lloyd Barrington, goes off to get an education but ends up back in Egypt; any small town has someone like him.Aneeka DiBias, another protagonist, leads a local protest against the excesses of the hunting culture that thrives in Egypt; the story is based on actual Maine hunting accident that killed a woman in her backyard.Forest Johnson, also a central character, is as perfect a depiction of a small town road commissioner as you'll ever see. There is a whole gallery of quirky oddballs: Unk Walty, with his gift for creating papier-mache likenesses of real people, to macabre effect; David Moody, the minister turned philosophical well driller; David Turnbull--the biker creaking with leather, with a creepy dog named King in his lap; Carroll Plummer, the alcoholic whose second chance at a happy life is so heartbreakingly destroyed.

The characters in "Merry Men" don't mean much to anyone beyond Egypt. Someone loses his family farm to the bank, someone else ends up living in a car camper. A couple loses their first child because the hospital is reluctant to treat the wife and they have (surprise!) no health insurance.Jobs with logging operations pay, until the companies leave, having despoiled the landscape.

These kinds of characters, along with their precarious economic situations, don't mean much to some readers, either. See Ann Hulbert's contemptuous review in the New York Times when the book was published.She practically wore out her thesaurus with words like "hicks," "rustic," "cramped," "provincial," "primitive," "grotesque," and "yokel."No doubt a novel that examined a cross-section of a New York City block in all ITS minute detail would be, by contrast, fascinatingly cosmopolitan. Hulbert, writing in 1994, noted contemptuously that the novel has "an air of stale populist propaganda" because its characters suffer at the hands of indifferent corporations, banks, agribusiness, hospitals, and schools. Today, the novel seems downright prescient. Near its close, one of the "rustics" offers a bleak view of the future: "'everyone will be entirely dependent on big business, and entirely created in the image of big business. Many will fail the competitive part, but they'll certainly be dependent. They will not make the grade at the fast and funny new hi-tech life. They will fall by the wayside. But there will be a place for those kind! The military. The prisons. And executions like you never saw before.'" Sometimes a novel can open up a world you don't live in, the better to see the one in which you do.
M. Feldman

This is a GREAT BOOK in "The Great Books" sense of the word.
This is a great book in "The Great Books" sense of the word. It's rich and full and, amazing things seem to happen on every page.Take Rembrandt and Velasquez and Dickens and Tolstoy and have them create a portrait of Western Maine.That will give some idea of what this book like.

Mrs. Chute, however, is very upset that people cannot be farmers the way they were in the Nineteenth Century. Mrs. Chute is a brilliant writer but she is angry.

Whether or not you agree with Mrs. Chute's politics everyone needs to read this book. I am shocked to find it out of print. Mrs. Chute is one of the Best Writers that ever Walked the Face of Earth.

Read it for the gorgeous writing
Carolyn Chute can write, no doubt about that. With rich, spicy, earthy prose she brings to life her rural Maine setting and a whole town full of characters in this third novel.

The setting is the same as for her first two books:Egypt, a small town on the edge of the woods in western Maine, a place where impoverished natives and rich folks "from away" live side by side, but seperate existences.

The characters in this 695-page novel include most of the population, with emphasis on LLoyd Barington, of working-class/farming stock, Forest Johnson, Jr., whose backhoe and 'dozing business employs many of the town's poorest, and Gwen Curry, whose horrid mother proves that money and Connecticut gentility are no proof against cruelty.

The plot, well, here the novel runs into trouble. There is no plot, so to speak. While her characters do cross paths with one another, there is no unifying progression of events- except the slow generalized denigration of a rural way of life. That, it turns out, is Chute's point. "Merry Men" is a documentation of hard times getting harder, of the corporate mindset grinding down the individual.

Not that all her Maine folk are saints, although Lloyd Barrington comes close. Forest Johnson, Jr., for instance, takes advantage of his employees' desperation at every opportunity.

As the book opens, Forest has called out the constable on a bitter winter night. A prank -the fifth in as few days. "Forest, Jr.'s frozen breath bunches and bounces around his face so now there's no face. When his face reappears, it's just this dark sovereignty of eyes behind steel-rimmed glasses and a fierce close shave." Faced with the constable's impotence, Forest vows to lie in wait and kill the merry prankster.

The book then jumps back 30 years, although this is not apparent unless you glance at the top margin of the page. We meet Lloyd Barrington, age 8 3/4, fat, earnest, sensitive, a writer of poetry, a lover of shade trees. This lengthy section is breezy, humorous, affectionate and deeply touching.

Lloyd's mother has died. He lives with his taciturn, incomprehensible father, Edmund, and a houseful of uncles, including Unk Walty, who cooks fabulous meals for them all, unless he's absorbed in one of his papier mache projects, like his masterpiece - lifesized reproductions of all the local women Edmund has slept with, seated around a table dressed in beautiful last-century costumes.

At night Lloyd sneaks out of bed and flits around town in his Super Tree Man costume. "A fat boy by day, maybe so. But tonight and many nights to come, he's a thing of glory." Lloyd plants baby maples. "If they make it, in thirty years, the fat lady's yard will be in deep cool splendorous shade."

Next we meet Gwen Curry on the day her father, Dr. Curry, has died. Gwen is a fearful, lonely child, her mind flickering between the awful events following her father's death and jagged memories of her short life with Phoebe, her mother. Every night Phoebe sings under the grate to Gwen's bedroom. A few times her father had remonstrated. "So Phoebe sang louder. Show tunes. Pop tunes. Rock and Roll. Television jingles. And once a shattery tinkling splat! A glass thrown into the sink."

Chute's portrait of manic cruelty and bewildered child is heart rending. Yet when Grandma packs them off to Connecticutt that's the last we see of Gwen for hundreds of pages.

In between there are numerous vignettes - Forest Johnson, Jr., fires an illiterate man and Forest's dissolute son returns from California bringing a grandson who's soon embroiled in family strife. The Soules, Lloyd's wife's people, lose their family farm to the bank. A young Soule falls in love with a middle-aged cousin of Lloyd's, a man on parole, suffering from clinical depression. They marry and as the husband loses his job, she becomes pregnant. Many of these stories end badly; some Chute simply abandons. Each absorbs the reader; none are fully resolved.

Finally Gwen Curry comes back, a rich, very rich, widow of an industrialist, a symbol of all the things gone wrong in Egypt. Her attaction to Lloyd, educated former hippie, man of all work, crusader, prankster, is instant. He is more ambivalent.

How Chute resolves this final conflict adds to the reader's frustration. Such magnificent writing, so often leading nowhere. And towards the end, Chute cannot resist long preachy passages explaining what's wrong with America even though she just spent 500 pages showing us. But Chute is worth reading for the breadth and beauty of her language and characters - even if you turn the last page and throw the book across the room.

Too bad about the ending
Living in a small Maine town, I can attest to the veracity of Chute's vision. The characters are well-realized.Many scenes are breath-takingly well-written.Two problems with the novel: (1) It would be better without Chute's sermons about the grotesque evils of hunting & corporate America.(2)It would be a great novel with a different ending. The final act of the protagonist, Lloyd Barrington, is uncharacteristically & gratuitously cruel.That Chute had to change her protagonist's personality shows that she did not know how to end this wonderful, sprawling novel.

Another enthralling epic from the unabashedly real Chute
Chute's cyclonic novel absolutely captivated me and revealed a world within the state in which I live, but one that will always exist outside of mine as an "outer-stater".The characters, their struggles anddisappointments were utterly realized.However, I have a problem withLloyd's final "Robin Hood" act.For nearly 700 pages, Chute gaveus an utterly endearing and sensitive character in Lloyd Barrington, onewho NEVER hurt anyone and only acted against faceless corporations.Forhim to act so contrary to that nature was unfounded, no matter the economicstatus of an individual.Any feedback? ... Read more

Product Description
A mother and daughter see the news reports that a senator has been assassinated in the lobby of Boston's venerable Parker House. They hear that his killer, Robert Drummond, has escaped, prompting a nationwide manhunt. And yet Robert, wounded and suffering, has not gone far. He has, in fact, found refuge in the garage of another senator's Beacon Hill home, a place where the obvious options are death and discovery. But the unexpected happens in the form of the senator's daughter and wife. Despite the media frenzy, mother and daughter find themselves faced with a dying man whose desperate straits-both before and after the crime-they cannot ignore, and the two women become intimately involved with a man whose intelligence and physical presence weave a mesmerizing spell. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (14)

Absolutely Revolutionary
This is an incredibly revolutionary book. It is not a thriller or a love story, though it contains those elements. The narrative is "post-modern" in that perspective shifts continuously depending on what Chute is trying to get across at the moment. It might be off-putting at first. Particularly as the dog seems to have consciousness. But stick with it and you will see that there is a point to how she tells the story. That is part of the story and that is what gives it its energy. At its core it is a social critique par excellence because it takes no prisoners, so to speak. Brilliant stuff. I can see how some would fail to understand or would reject such a fundamental criticism of the system. Free your mind.

good read
Great writer! I didn't want to put it down.
Book came in good condition.Very pleased.

An embarrassingly poor piece of writing
This novel is not worth the reader's time and energy, to say nothing of investment. It is miserably written--full of cliches, contradictions in description, irrelevant detail, and simple-minded prose. It would be useful only as example to my English students on 'what not to do.' It surely did not have an editor. The story is unbelieveable and full of gratuitous description of male genitals; the identity of the narrator is never clear--other than the author apparently preaching her politics in the form of the 'royal we.' The dog in the story achieves godlike omniscience. All of the book's shallow and juvenile blather makes one hope any serious militia member would distance himself from this as presentation of worthwhile ideas. It insults the reader with its lack of depth.

A political philosphy not often seen in mainstream fiction
I read Carolyn Chute's first novel,"The Beans of Egypt, Maine" in 1985.It introduced me to a world of the working poor in a rural area of Maine and I remember how it opened my eyes to their poverty. In "Snow Man", Ms. Chute's fourth novel, some of this territory is familiar.But unlike her other book, this is not a big rambling family saga.Instead, it is a tightly drawn and fast paced story of an urban terrorist, Robert Drummond, a member of a militia, who publicly murders a senator in Boston. Wounded, he flees to the home of another senator who is off in Washington, and therefore away from his home at the time.Here, this second senator's wife and daughter nurse the fugitive back to health and hide him from the authorities.

Ms. Chute's prose is tense and clear although she has a tendency to use words like "orangey" a little too often.She's particularly good at describing wounds and Robert Drummond's painful shoulder wound is a throbbing reminder of his discomfort.But the rest of his hiding-out time certainly is pleasant and there's seduction at play here too, and not just on a physical level.He's portrayed as a strong and sympathetic character and we hear his philosophy of life over and over again.It's shown in bitter contrast to the life of the two upper class women taking care of him. For example, when he tells them his wife had to go out and get a job, the senator's daughter, who just happens to be a professor of women's studies, makes a comment about the need for women to pursue careers and get out of the house.Then she asks what kind of job his wife got.Robert's answer is simple - "McDonalds".There are constant references like that illustrating yuppie naivety about what it means to be poor in America.

I read this novel quickly as the story moved along well, but Ijust couldn't get into the characters.It seemed unlikely that the two women would become so enamored with this man even though he comes across as attractive and macho.All the people are stereotypes, created by Ms. Chute to forward her own political philosophy.In a way this is refreshing because it is a philosophy not often seen in mainstream fiction.But I never really understood why Robert Drummond's frustration with his poverty and anger about corporate greed would make him want to take the life of another human being.I wonder though, if I, too, am just being naïve.

Those who might want a glimpse into the thought processes of a militiaman might find this book interesting.However, it is only a glimpse and doesn't go deep enough.And the story, while well crafted, is basically superficial.

Disappointing
I anticipated another wonderful Carolyn Chute book when I picked this one up. I did not find any of the colorful characters and unique story that she has entertained me with in the past.It was so far off from her other books, it makes me wonder where she wrote it and why she wrote it. ... Read more

Product Description
Based on the popular board game, this colorful picture book features six flaps for small children to lift and see the rewards and consequences for good and bad behavior. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A Priceless Collection
Every story in this collection is a gem that has been embedded in the pegmatite ledges of Maine until the publication of this book.Some of the stories are American classics, some are classics only here in Maine, and some have emerged from obscurity to grace the pages of this amazing book.No matter which way the story came to be in "The Best Maine Stories" they will be loved by all (not just those from Maine)!My favorite story:The Viking's Daughter. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (19)

pretty damn terrible
The item was never sent or received.I"m more than just annoyed. I've not had any contact from the vendor or Amazon.I'll try another used book vendor in the future.
,

We'll all live just like the Beans...
We'll all live just like the Beans, someday real soon I suspect. As soon as the big corporations get through pickin the skeleton clean. Pickin the last meat off the bones. After the corpse that was America,has had it's blood sucked dry. They'll be just two kinds of people, the very poor and the very,very rich.The very poor, you and me and the Beans. How well would you fair under such a hard scrabble existence?How are you going to fair, when it all falls apart, this shaky house of cards?
It's a great book.Probably one of my all time favorites. It's one of those special books that plays like a movie in your mind as you read it.It does that because of the sheer skill of the author.I'm very sad. I'm sorry the story had to end. Maybe it's not going to end. Perhaps we've seen a vision of our future.This may be how all of us,(the used to be working class) will be living. Just surviving.

Dull dull dull...
I can't believe this thing was a bestseller.I read this because it was featured in the book "How To Write A Breakout Novel" and sounded interesting.I was wrong.I am finishing it only because I hate to leave a book half-read, and it's not the most *boring* book I've ever read (a record still held by Anna Karenina since college, lo these many years ago).It's not until over halfway through the book before anything even remotely interesting happens (an attack on a law enforcement authority).The writing definitely has its moments but the characters largely do a lot of vaguely strange things for no apparent reason that I can see, and damned if I can find any real conflict or 'villain' in this (what, poverty?Poverty is tragic, but it's mindless and therefore non-villainous).Mostly it's just these really pathetic people going about their lives with no real plotline.Isn't that why many would-be novels get rejected by agents and publishers, because of a lack of a plotline?If I'd been Ms. Chute's agent I would have sent it back to her with a few plot suggestions & asked her to submit again.Oh well, Anne Rice gets away with that too.

This thing has the feel of 'not ready for prime time', but still with lots of promise. I'm giving this two stars because some semblance of conflict *does* show up albeit awfully late to the party, and because Ms. Chute's ability to convey a hillbilly point of view with such lyrical prose is to be commended.If you read this book for any reason, the prose is definitely it.If you're looking for plotline, look elsewhere.

You're One in a Million
Carolyn Chute is my shooting star, really.Earlene Bean is the best American fiction character to walk onto the novel in this past century.

Depressing but thought provoking
We like to pretend the world of these characters does not exist and even if we may admit it does most of us don't want the details. It opened a window to a new reality for me. I appreciated the author's notes at the end; I did not assume incest between Lee and Earlene though she states that many did. I found myself profoundly grateful for my education and resources which have spared me this type of existence. I found Earlene to be a likeable character and the lack of fairy tale solutions gave credence to the sad realities of poverty. ... Read more

Product Description
Word count: 2619. ... Read more