Grisham has written many fascinating legal thrillers. I've enjoyed them all. With A Painted House, however, his style is considerably different. I had the feeling he was really taking us back home to get a taste of how he grew up in Mississippi. Readers accustomed to his high octane legal thrillers, will probably be disappointed in this novel. For those of us who are interested in seeing more into the soul of a gifted writer, this is an interesting door to take.

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 like 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 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.

As a fan of Grisham's legal thrillers, I bought this only on the basis of jacket notes. I was not disappointed.

It is not a legal thriller. It is about rural life in the 1950s in the American mid west for poor farmers struggling to get by, from the viewpoint of a young boy.

It is not fast paced except for the occasional burst of overt violence. But it does entice you into reading more, eager to know what happens next to young Luke.

I have often wondered if this is part autobiography, as there are similarities to Grisham's own background.

The characters are real. The plot is excellent. The only possible criticism is the pace. Sometimes it does seem to crawl along at the pace of cotton growing in the summer heat. This is more a comment on me than on the book as the overall effect matches the essence of the story very well.

Grisham demonstrates his ability beyond the legal genre and captivates his audience.

First time I read this book was just an excerpt. I could'nt help myself from buying the whole book and read it in 3,5 days.
Very natural story-telling. I felt very much accustomed to the characters that in the end I wanted for more.
Some reviewers say the book contains no suspense but this book is not of suspense genre anyway.
No single doubt Grisham is a brilliant story teller.

The book was very well written and has a lot of historical detail to back up the setting. I felt like I was living on a cotton farm back in 1952 where the days were slow and simple but at the same time critical events happened and people had to deal with them. My only criticism is that Luke's age did seem much too young for some of his behavior but it allowed him to straddle between being the innocent child and adolescent.

The resolution of the book seemed to be that family farms were no longer sustainable and it was time to give it up and find a factory job to afford a car and a television and start "living". It is interesting to compare the shift in the workforce to the present day when factory jobs have run their course.