The Beans of Egypt, Maine

Chute, Carolyn

3.58

3,659 ratings by Goodreads

9781423374503: The Beans of Egypt, Maine

ISBN 10: 1423374509 ISBN 13: 9781423374503

Publisher: Brilliance Audio, 2008

Upon its initial publication, The Beans of Egypt, Maine became a beloved national bestseller, launching Carolyn Chute’s literary career and clinching her reputation as the preeminent voice of America’s working poor. Hailed by the New York Times Book Review as “startling and original,” The Beans of Egypt, Maine introduced the world to the notorious, unforgettable Bean clan of small town Egypt, Maine—from wild man Reuben, an alcoholic who can’t seem to keep himself out of jail; to his cousins, the perpetually pregnant Roberta, and Beal, a man gentle by temperament but violent in defeat who marries his pious neighbor Earlene Pomerleau before poverty kills him.

As the Beans struggled with their inner demons to survive against hardship and societal ignorance, Chute emerged as a writer of immense humanity and unparalleled insight into a world most of us knew little of—if we’d recognized it at all.

“Chute’s novel pulses with kinetic energy. It seizes the reader on its opening page with a rhythm, a language, a knock-about country humor unmistakably its own.” —Newsweek

“Like Flannery O’Connor, Chute has a gift for expressing the true spirit of a culture but with more subtlety and without overt symbolism. She simply becomes what and whom she sees.” —San Francisco Chronicle

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From the Back Cover:

There are families like the Beans all over America. They live on the wrong side of town in mobile homes strung with Christmas lights all year around. The women are often pregnant, the men drunk and just out of jail, and the children too numerous to count. In the 'Beans of Egypt', Maine, we meet the God-fearing Earlene Pomerleau and experience her obsession for the whole swarming Bean tribe. Therecousin Rubie, a boozer and a brawler, tall Aunt Roberta, the earth mother surrounded by countless, clinging babies, and Beal, sensitive, often gentle, but doomed by the violence within him.

About the Author:

Carolyn Chute is the author of The Beans of Egypt, Maine; Letourneau’s Used Auto Parts; Snow Man; and Merry Men, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. She has been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Thorton Wilder Fellowship. She currently lives in Maine with her husband.

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