He Never Disappoints

A Painted House by John Grisham

Adult Fiction

This is not a typical Grisham--not a law thriller or even a murder mystery.  Instead, it was my favorite type of book and a genre I'd not read from Grisham before--a dark family history.

The setting is rural Arkansas, 1952.  Seven-year old Luke Chandler has just one thing on his mind--baseball.  The only thing that stands in the way of his summer fun is the harvesting of the family's cotton crop, which means weeks of 18-hour backbreaking labor.   The family can't do the job alone and enlists the help of a migrant farm family and some Mexican immigrants.  This dynamic combination of personalities conflict almost immediately and soon one of them is dead and Luke is the sole witness.

Grisham's slow Southern drawl is evident here and reading this book is like meandering down a back country road.  Told from the point of view of the young boy Luke, that innocence makes the events of the story more horrifying.

Another classic from the master!