Grisham takes refreshing change of pace
April 24, 2001
When it was first announced that John Grisham?s latest novel was abandoning the courtroom and heading for the cotton fields, fans were skeptical. They?d waited all year for his next legal thriller and now, by Grisham?s own admittance, there was “not a single lawyer, dead or alive.” But, after all the impatient guess work, the sigh of relief for readers rests within the pages of his twelfth book, “A Painted House.”
Grisham?s writing style hasn?t changed with his latest novel, only the setting has. Gone is the fast paced courtroom dilemma and customary suspense that have kept the fingers of his readers tingling in anticipation of the next page. He?s abandoned his trademark for a more refreshing outlook on the common man.
Get your plates and forks ready; Grisham is serving up a real slice of Americana. Set in the rural Arkansas of 1952, the novel is narrated by the incomparable Luke Chandler, a seven-year-old boy whose experiences and outlook as a member of a cotton farming family place him in unbelievable, yet surprisingly realistic circumstances. The novel is a tribute to Grisham?s boyhood, with the plot and some characters loosely based on his real-life encounters. It?s somewhat nostalgic and definitely slower than his previous works, which offer up the possibility of turning off some Grisham fans, but the characters, which include hardened farmers generations removed and scornful “hill people” eager for a brawl, are genuine and well developed.
As expected, it?s filled with Grisham?s typical Southern humor, such as when Luke describes his Baptist upbringing:
“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.”
The experiences of Luke Chandler in “A Painted House” are well worth the read. You see life through his eyes??from dreaming of playing baseball with theCardinals to witnessing a brutal murder, all with the boyhood innocence that goes with viewing something for the first time.