The Beans of Egypt, Maine: The Finished Version [Paperback]

Carolyn Chute (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 10, 1995 | Series: Harvest American Writing

With her bestselling first novel, Chute placed Egypt, Maine, on the literary map and introduced the world to the Bean clan. “If you care about fine writing, you owe it to yourself to read this book” (Boston Globe). Postscript by the Author.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Carolyn Chute burst on the literary scene in 1985 with the critically acclaimed and bestselling The Beans of Egypt, Maine. She followed this success with Letourneau's Used Auto Parts and the epic Merry Men. Her nonfiction work has appeared in the New York Times, the Nation, and elsewhere, and she has written about the militia movement in Maine, where she lives with her husband, Michael, and various furry creatures.

From AudioFile

Some novels should be heard and not read, and Chute's classic about the tiny town of Egypt, Maine, and its mostly related residents, last name Bean, is definitely one of them. There is just no way to accurately write a backwoods Maine accent; you've got to hear it. When Joyce Bean and William Dufris speak in their characters' heavily Maine-inflected voices, Chute's characters are suddenly standing there right in front of you, even if you wish they weren't. As in William Faulkner's novel AS I LAY DYING, these characters provoke more disgust than sympathy, sinking lower and lower till they hardly seem human. The surprise is, they are human, and, partly due to beautifully understated readings, by the end of the book your heart is breaking for them. N.G. © AudioFile 2009, Portland, Maine --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Mariner Books (March 10, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0156001888
• ISBN-13: 978-0156001885
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (40 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #872,044 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Comments from a teacher who's lived it..., May 2, 2005

By 

Jay Dee - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Beans of Egypt, Maine: The Finished Version (Paperback)

Reading this novel will make you feel like the brave individuals who want to experience the more unfortunate part of our world...some such adventurous souls take on the garb and guise of a homeless person...actually going out to spend time, sleep on our planets big city streets and "really" find out how the other half lives...Or, barring the misfortune of having been born into and raised in the fictional but epidemically unfortunate true to life community of "Egypt" Maine, and/or not wanting to experience homelessness or extreme poverty and it's trappings yourself...it is possible to get a strong idea of what it's like to live how Ms. Chute describes by working in one of the social services...in particuarly, teaching...

This reviewer has taught in the area of New England ( New Hampshire and Maine ) that Ms. Chute describes...and while I have since been teaching in a nearby state, I can tell you that she is right on in her descriptions of many New England, or for that matter, ANY of the rural and too often depressed locales that cover our country.

Often, as was this reviewer's experience, such counties are indeed populated by three or four "Maine" family names that account for a disproportionate amount of the community and surrounding schools. These "families" or really, distended living groups, certainly with no semblage of a nuclear family, tend to always be at the head of the local police department's blotter and also tend to acquire the lion's share of their self admitted need for help and social services.

It is hard not to read Ms. Chute's work without coming to the "conclusions" that she hopes the fair minded reader will avoid. To be sure, everyone's own background and their own growing up experiences definitely have a strong bearing on what one will take away from this book...

Have such families squandered opportunities given to them over the years...Are they just lazy and no good?...Are they just hardluck folks missing out because of battling a day to day existence?...Is education or lack of it and an inability to follow their own interests and preferences into meaningful life experiences that will help them in their personal pursuits and the work world the problem?...Is there something to this problem that everyone is overlooking including those who live and exist in such poverty?...Perhaps combinations of all of this?...

Love it or loathe it...This book will definitely make you think!

30 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating, disturbing, moody - brilliant!, May 18, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: The Beans of Egypt, Maine: The Finished Version (Paperback)

This is not a novel for those looking for a simple, pre-digested read with a typical setting-action-climax structure. This is a literary novel - rife with atmosphere, amazing imagery and allegory - and well worth the extra brain-cell workout it might take to discover all the nuances. Even without the analytical approach, you'll enjoy it as a fresh and unsettling picture of poor poor poor life in America - it's a window to another world.

23 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Everything you ever knew about rednecks, April 6, 2002

By 

claire a przybyla (Des Plaaines, IL, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Beans of Egypt, Maine (Mass Market Paperback)

This collection of inter-related short stories presents a dim picture of life in rural, backwoods America. Chute does a good job of highlighting a largely neglected aspect of poverty in the contemporary United States: the existence of a white underclass whose number may even surpass that of their urban black or Hispanic counterparts. The former are much less conspicuous, largely being rural, more spread out, and less easily identified by their physical characteristics. The groups all suffer from similar malaise, however: poverty, high rates of illegitimacy, violence, run-ins with the law, and alienation from larger society. The author also does a good job showing how the younger characters come to increasingly resemble their older counterparts. Thus, young Beal Bean tragically mimics the violence of his uncle Reuben and Earlene Pomerleau sadly comes to take the place of Reuben's wife Madeline.

All the stereotypes about hillbillies are presented in this novel: incest, mental retardation, bad teeth. One wonders if the cultural elites would lavish their accolades on a similar novel that featured criminal, foot-shuffling, watermelon-eating African-American characters. Still, stereotypes didn't get to be stereotypes if large numbers of real characters who fit the type weren't readily observable. There is a thin line between stereotypes and archetypes, between parodying the traits of a particular group and epitomizing them. It's just hard to decide on which side of this line Chute's novel falls.