The hill people and the Mexicans arrived on the same day. It was a Wednesday, early in
September 1952. The Cardinals were five games behind the Dodgers with three weeks to
go, and the season looked hopeless. The cotton, however, was waist-high to my father,
over my head, and he and my grandfather could be heard before supper whispering words
that were seldom heard. It could be a "good crop."
Thus begins the new novel from John Grisham, a story inspired by his own childhood in
rural Arkansas. The narrator is a farm boy named Luke Chandler, age seven, who lives in
the cotton fields with his parents and grandparents in a little house that's never been
painted. The Chandlers farm eighty acres that they rent, not own, and when the cotton is
ready they hire a truckload of Mexicans and a family from the Ozarks to help harvest it.
For six weeks they pick cotton, battling the heat, the rain, the fatigue, and, sometimes,
each other. As the weeks pass Luke sees and hears things no seven-year-old could
possibly be prepared for, and finds himself keeping secrets that not only threaten the crop
but will change the lives of the Chandlers forever.
"A Painted House" is a moving story of one boy's journey from innocence to experience.
John Grisham
A Painted House
Chapter 1
The hill people and the Mexicans arrived on the same day. It was a Wednesday, early in
September 1952. The Cardinals were five games behind the Dodgers with three weeks to
go, and the season looked hopeless. The cotton, however, was waist-high to my father,
over my head, and he and my grandfather could be heard before supper whispering words
that were seldom heard. It could be a "good crop."
They were farmers, hardworking men who embraced pessimism only when discussing
the weather and the crops. There was too much sun, or too much rain, or the threat of
floods in the lowlands, or the rising prices of seed and fertilizer, or the uncertainties of
the markets. On the most perfect of days, my mother would quietly say to me, "Don't
worry. The men will find something to worry about."
Pappy, my grandfather, was worried about the price for labor when we went searching for
the hill people. They were paid for every hundred pounds of cotton they picked. The
previous year, according to him, it was $1.50 per hundred. He'd already heard rumors
that a farmer over in Lake City was offering $1.60.
This played heavily on his mind as we rode to town. He never talked when he drove, and
this was because, according to my mother, not much of a driver herself, he was afraid of
motorized vehicles. His truck was a 1939 Ford, and with the exception of our old John
Deere tractor, it was our sole means of transportation. This was no particular problem
except when we drove to church and my mother and grandmother were forced to sit
snugly together up front in their Sunday best while my father and I rode in the back,
engulfed in dust. Modern sedans were scarce in rural Arkansas.
Pappy dro...

Show full text: 651,826 characters