A Painted House by John Grisham ~ Book Review

In A Painted House, author John Grisham takes us away from the legal dramas he is famous for and give us a historical fiction story set in 1950's Arkansas inspired by his own childhood.  

Seven year old Luke and his family are generational cotton farmers who rent 80 acres, which puts them in the impoverished folk category.  There is never much money left over for anything.  But young Luke's dream of playing for the St. Louis Cardinals one day and having a painted house keep him going.  Only people who do well have painted houses.  When the cotton is ripe it's all hands on deck for the picking including Luke.  The Chandlers hire migrant workers from Mexico and also "hill people" who come down for work during the cotton picking season.  It's hot, exhausting work fraught with worry for the adults as they keep their eyes on the weather hoping that this year could be a good crop.  For Luke and his family during harvest season, baseball sustains them throughout the spring and summer being their only diversion from the hard work and drudgery of the fields.  Saturdays are the day of reprieve for all, as everyone including the Mexicans and the hill people heads into town in the afternoon to shop for supplies, enjoy the meeting of friends and for the kids a matinee movie.  But one Saturday Luke and his friend are witness to an event that will kick off a summer of secrets for Luke that a 7 year old should never have to carry.  

This was an interesting story.  I'd never read historical fiction set in a cotton farm in this time period before.  The narrator of the story is seven year old Luke and so the days and events are seen through his eyes and his experience.  It is a summer where he grows up very quickly as his natural, rambunctious 7 year old self ends up witnessing things which then force him to carry secrets he feels he must keep and the burden of that comes to a breaking point.  It's funny after just reading "Hillbilly Elegy" and the description of violence as attitude and a way of life in that book that I would then come across a fictional story that also describes some of that same experience.  The story is not a fast paced story like the author's legal thrillers but more of a slower meandering slice of life of the farming poor of the area and time and their struggle just to survive another harvest, their hopes and their dreams.  Baseball and cotton are main characters in the story and while the cotton farming was interesting to me the baseball part I did end up skimming simply because I'm not a baseball fan but my doing that didn't detract from the story in the least.  Fans of baseball would enjoy the descriptions.   I think this has been turned into a movie so am going to try to find it to watch.  

I gave it a solid 7.5/10

Read Your Shelves Challenge prompt:  A book with a "home-ish" word in the title (House)