A Painted House
Until that September of
1952, Luke Chandler had never kept a secret or told a single lie. But
in the long, hot summer of his seventh year, two groups of migrant
workers — and two very dangerous men — came through the Arkansas Delta
to work the Chandler cotton farm. And suddenly mysteries are flooding
Luke’s world.
A brutal murder leaves the town seething in gossip
and suspicion. A beautiful young woman ignites forbidden passions. A
fatherless baby is born ... and someone has begun furtively painting the
bare clapboards of the Chandler farmhouse, slowly, painstakingly,
bathing the run-down structure in gleaming white. And as young Luke
watches the world around him, he unravels secrets that could shatter
lives — and change his family and his town forever....
Reviews
“John Grisham is about as good a storyteller as we’ve got.”—
The New York Times Book Review
“The
kind of book you read slowly because you don’t want it to end ... John
Grisham takes command of this literary category just as forcefully as he
did legal thrillers with
The Firm.... Never let it be said this man doesn’t know how to spin a good yarn.”—
Entertainment Weekly
“Characters
that no reader will forget. .. prose as clean and strong as any Grisham
has yet laid down ... and a drop-dead evocation of a time and place
that mark this novel as a classic slice of Americana.”—
Publishers Weekly
“Some of the finest dialogue of his career ... Every detail rings clear and true, and nothing is wasted.”—
Seattle Times
A memorable adaptation of John Grisham's life-affirming story, A
Painted House draws on childhood memories and "local lore" from his
Arkansas roots.
Amazon.com: Even by the high standards of the Hallmark Hall of Fame, A Painted House is well above average. John Grisham's well-received "lawyer-free" novel was respectfully adapted by Patrick Sheane Duncan (Mr. Holland's Opus), and director Alfonso Arau (Like Water for Chocolate, A Walk in the Clouds)
brings just the right touch of toughness and delicate nostalgia to
Grisham's semi-autobiographical remembrance of boyhood in rural
Arkansas, circa 1952. Grisham's alter ego is 10-year-old Luke Chandler
(well played by Logan Lerman), and when tempers flare into violence
between the Mexican migrant workers and itinerant "hill people" hired to
harvest cotton on his grandfather's farm, Luke--who has witnessed a
murder--must decide whether to expose the killer or keep the crime a
secret. Filled with warm grace notes and a perfect cast including
leather-faced Scott Glenn and Melinda Dillon (as Luke's grandparents), A Painted House
juggles multiple crises (including devastating rainstorms) with strong
family values, capturing the humor and hardship of farming life at a
crossroads of fading tradition and inevitable change. Combining elements
of To Kill a Mockingbird and Places in the Heart, this is a purebred Hallmark production in every respect, earning a badge of pride for everyone involved in its maki
John
Grisham
"Long before his name became
synonymous with the modern legal thriller, he was working 60-70 hours a
week at a small Southaven, Mississippi law practice, squeezing in time
before going to the office and during courtroom recesses to work on his
hobby—writing his first novel.
Born on February 8, 1955 in
Jonesboro, Arkansas, to a construction worker and a homemaker, John
Grisham as a child dreamed of being a professional baseball player.
Realizing he didn't have the right stuff for a pro career, he shifted
gears and majored in accounting at Mississippi State University. After
graduating from law school at Ole Miss in 1981, he went on to practice
law for nearly a decade in Southaven, specializing in criminal defense
and personal injury litigation. In 1983, he was elected to the state
House of Representatives and served until 1990.
One day at the
DeSoto County courthouse, Grisham overheard the harrowing testimony of a
twelve-year-old rape victim and was inspired to start a novel exploring
what would have happened if the girl's father had murdered her
assailants. Getting up at 5 a.m. every day to get in several hours of
writing time before heading off to work, Grisham spent three years on A
Time to Kill and finished it in 1987. Initially rejected by many
publishers, it was eventually bought by Wynwood Press, who gave it a
modest 5,000 copy printing and published it in June 1988.
That
might have put an end to Grisham's hobby. However, he had already begun
his next book, and it would quickly turn that hobby into a new full-time
career—and spark one of publishing's greatest success stories. The day
after Grisham completed A Time to Kill, he began work on another novel,
the story of a hotshot young attorney lured to an apparently perfect law
firm that was not what it appeared. When he sold the film rights to The
Firm to Paramount Pictures for $600,000, Grisham suddenly became a hot
property among publishers, and book rights were bought by Doubleday.
Spending 47 weeks on The New York Times bestseller list, The Firm became
the bestselling novel of 1991.
The successes of The Pelican
Brief, which hit number one on the New York Times bestseller list, and
The Client, which debuted at number one, confirmed Grisham's reputation
as the master of the legal thriller. Grisham's success even renewed
interest in A Time to Kill, which was republished in hardcover by
Doubleday and then in paperback by Dell. This time around, it was a
bestseller.
Since first publishing A Time to Kill in 1988,
Grisham has written one novel a year (his other books are The Firm, The
Pelican Brief, The Client, The Chamber, The Rainmaker, The Runaway Jury,
The Partner, The Street Lawyer, The Testament, The Brethren, A Painted
House, Skipping Christmas, The Summons, The King of Torts, Bleachers,
The Last Juror, and The Broker) and all of them have become
international bestsellers. There are currently over 225 million John
Grisham books in print worldwide, which have been translated into 29
languages. Nine of his novels have been turned into films (The Firm, The
Pelican Brief, The Client, A Time to Kill, The Rainmaker, The Chamber, A
Painted House, The Runaway Jury, and Skipping Christmas), as was an
original screenplay, The Gingerbread Man. The Innocent Man (October
2006) marks his first foray into non-fiction.
Grisham took time off from
writing for several months in 1996 to return, after a five-year hiatus,
to the courtroom. He was honoring a commitment made before he had
retired from the law to become a full-time writer: representing the
family of a railroad brakeman killed when he was pinned between two
cars. Preparing his case with the same passion and dedication as his
books' protagonists, Grisham successfully argued his clients' case,
earning them a jury award of $683,500--the biggest verdict of his career.
When
he's not writing, Grisham devotes time to charitable causes, including
most recently his Rebuild The Coast Fund, which raised 8.8 million
dollars for Gulf Coast relief in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. He also
keeps up with his greatest passion: baseball. The man who dreamed of
being a professional baseball player now serves as the local Little
League commissioner. The six ball fields he built on his property have
played host to over 350 kids on 26 Little League teams.
Grisham lives with
his wife Renee and their two children Ty and Shea. The family splits
their time between their Victorian home on a farm in Mississippi and a
plantation near Charlottesville, VA.
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