The Beet Fields: Memories of a Sixteenth Summer (Hardcover)

by Gary Paulsen (Author) "THE NORTH DAKOTA SUN CAME UP LATE..." (more)
Key Phrases: hoeing beets, grain truck, beet fields, North Dakota (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
The striking cover picture of a beautiful young man's bare, muscular back foreshadows the sensuality of this brilliant autobiographical novel for older boys by the author of Hatchet and Soldier's Heart. In this remarkable book, Gary Paulsen reworks material from his own life that has appeared earlier in his novels, to tell--with simple words and Hemingwayesque cadences--the story of a summer when a 16-year-old boy became a man.

Fleeing his mother's confusing drunken advances, a boy runs away and finds work in the beet fields of North Dakota. Wielding a hoe for long, hot days, he learns about cruelty from the farmer's wife and about kindness from his Mexican coworkers. Later an attraction to a girl glimpsed only once leads him into accepting a job driving a tractor, but a brush with the deputy sheriff sends him running again, only to be taken in by a sleazy carnival as a roustabout. He learns to shill for the geek, a fake wild man of Borneo who bites the heads off chickens, and yearns for Ruby, the voluptuous hootchy-kootchy dancer. During the summer the boy learns about life and people and his own ability to work and survive, and when Ruby invites him into her bed, his transition to manhood is complete.

While the sensual scenes and occasionally gritty language may make this novel problematic for adults, there is not a 15-year-old boy around who would not find that this poetic, powerful novel speaks to his soul. (Ages 14 and older) --Patty Campbell

From Publishers Weekly
No stranger to memoir, Paulsen (My Life in Dog Years; Father Water, Mother Woods) returns to a series of episodes he previously fictionalized in the 1977 Tiltawhirl John and now presents the material "as real as I can write it, and as real as I can remember it happening," as he says in an author's note. It is punishingly harsh stuff: 16 years old in 1955, "the boy," as he is called throughout, wakes up to find his drunk mother in his bed and realizes that tonight "something [is] different, wrong, about her need for him." He runs away and lands a backbreaking job on a beet farm in North Dakota, where his wages are cancelled out by the farmer's charges for the use of his hoe, for the tumbledown lodgings and for the only food available, sandwiches made of week-old bread that cost a dollar apiece. Eventually the boy starts working with a carnival, where he learns carny scams and is initiated into sex by the carnival stripper, Ruby. In a mannered prose style, Paulsen serves up strings of studied, impartial observations in paragraph-long sentences. The technique calls attention to itself, as does the occasional circumlocution (e.g., the seemingly endless sentence describing intercourse with Ruby concludes with "sinking into the wetness, the forever-warm wetness of Ruby"). Paulsen fans, however, will probably respond to the vote of confidence in their ability to handle such gritty subjects, and no one can fail to appreciate the author's transcendence of the appalling circumstances he describes. Ages 14-up.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Reading level: Young Adult
  
• Hardcover: 176 pages
• Publisher: Delacorte Books for Young Readers (September 12, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385326475
• ISBN-13: 978-0385326476
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #245,723 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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  #61 in	Books > Teens > Biographies & Memoirs

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful prose, but . . ., January 22, 2001

By A Customer

The Beet Fields is full of wonderful writing and imagery, but its characters lack the redeeming qualities that I would hope to find in a YA novel.

The 16-year-old boy who is the protagonist of the novel is introduced to us as his mother is attempting to seduce him. From that point, the confusion that he must feel develops into a nearly uncontrollable urge for sex. As he works to support himself, he encounters many people, but none take on a true role as mentor, or even friend, to the boy. When he finally fulfills his sexual desires with an older woman, we see no consequences either for the woman or the boy; in fact, the boy has now become "a man" who continues his rather unfocused life by joining the service.

Paulsen further complicates matters (for want of a better phrase) by presenting Mexican migrant farm workers who buck the stereotypes, yet the carnival workers and most of the other characters he encounters follow the stereotypes with a vengeance.

The story needs redeeming characters or, at least, consequences for actions that occur. All we see is a boy wandering through life with no purpose other than making it through each day. While that might be the case for some adolescents, I found no hope presented for those young people in this novel.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Beet Fields is truly memorable, October 24, 2000

By	Jan Chapman (Medina, OH USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Paulsen's The Beet Fields does indeed evoke Hemingway in its spare, evocative prose. I have been a bit underwhelmed by some of Paulsen's recent fiction for young adults and was pleasantly surprised to read such a superb memoir. Yes, I did buy it for the young adult collection of my library and am puzzled by another reviewer's comment that it was "inappropriate" for her library. It is indeed unflinching in its look at Paulsen's often brutal childhood experiences, but that makes it all the more memorable.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another great paulson book!, July 24, 2001

By	Celina (Grand Rapids MI USA) - See all my reviews

I really liked this book. Despite some more adult conten that, no, would not be apropriate for even i think 13 and/or 14 year olds, for the appropriate age group it is a great read! I have been through so many paulson books I can barely remember them all, but it still amazes me that gary can write on so many subjects. A breakaway from the usual adventure outdoors books, and even the indian and american historical books, this book still shows off paulson's love an talent for drawing in all kinds of people. This is not just a book for tean-age boys, though if you refuse to read anything else read this. The struggles "the boy" goes through are very real and very interesting. His freindship with the mexicans helps to show that when in need and in the real world diversity does not matter, and his latching onto carneys is a great turn of events. This book shows the value of hard work and is of course a coming of age book, but if anything it is definately a paulson book and i thouroughly enjoyed it!