A Painted House by John Grisham




The unabridged audiobook is excellent


Published by Bantam Doubleday Audio in 2001
Duration: 12 hours, 7 minutes
Read by David Lansbury
Unabridged

I am not a giant fan of Grisham's latest legal thrillers but I am becoming a fan of his non-lawyer books, such as Bleachers and A Painted House. Grisham's non-legal novels are wonderful "slice of life" views of rural/small town America.

A Painted House is a rite of passage novel about a 7 year old boy (Luke Chandler) growing up on an Arkansas cotton farm in 1952 with his parents and grandparents. His uncle is off fighting the war in Korea.

It is the beginning of the two month long picking season and his family hires some hired hands to help pick the cotton. They hire a combination of "hill people" (poor whites from up in the Arkansas hills) and Mexicans who are literally trucked into Arkansas in the trailer of a semi as if they were cattle.

Luke learns a lot during this season, including about love, baseball, violence, cruelty, sacrifice, bravery, family pride, television, hard work, floods and failure. If you have worked on a family farm at any time this book will bring back a flood of memories. I was reminded of my grandparents, the massive Sunday meals, putting up hay, shoveling soybeans, riding on the tractor and plenty more. I doubt Mr. Grisham will ever read this, but I'd still like to thank him for refreshing those memories.

The author, John Grisham
The audiobook is about 12 hours in length and is read very well by David Lansbury who gives distinct and realistic voices to everyone. I especially enjoyed the grandmother's voice - it reminded me of plenty of the older ladies' voices at my church as I was growing up.


Kudos all around.

I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: A Painted House by John Grisham.

Reviewed March 27, 2009.

Comments

Popular posts over the last 30 days

THE GILDED AGE: A HISTORY from BEGINNING to END (kindle) by Hourly History

LULLABY TOWN (Elvis Cole #3) (audiobook) by Robert Crais

BATMAN - ONE BAD DAY: CLAYFACE (graphic novel) by Collin Kelly and Jackson Lanzing

BATMAN - ONE BAD DAY: BANE (graphic novel) by Joshua Williamson

BOUND for CANAAN: THE EPIC STORY of the UNDERGROUND RAILROAD, AMERICA'S FIRST CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT (audiobook) by Fergus Bordewich

FREE FALL (Elvis Cole #4) (audiobook) by Robert Crais

COMMEMORATIVE HISTORY of the GEORGE ROGERS CLARK BICENTENNIAL EXHIBIT by The Indiana State Museum

STAR WARS: DARTH VADER: DARK LORD of the SITH, VOLUME 4 - FORTRESS VADER (graphic novel) by Charles Soule

SUPERMAN '78 (graphic novel) by Robert Venditi

THE INSTINCT for COOPERATION: A GRAPHIC NOVEL CONVERSATION with NOAM CHOMSKY (graphic novel) by Noam Chomsky and Jeffrey Wilson