Valentine's Day gifts for her from Shopbop
To share your reaction on this item, open the Amazon app from the App Store or Google Play on your phone.
Add Prime to get Fast, Free delivery
Amazon prime logo
Buy new:
$14.95
FREE delivery Monday, February 3 on orders shipped by Amazon over $35
Ships from: Amazon.com
Sold by: Amazon.com
$14.95
Get Fast, Free Shipping with Amazon Prime FREE Returns
FREE delivery Monday, February 3 on orders shipped by Amazon over $35
Only 1 left in stock (more on the way).
$$14.95 () Includes selected options. Includes initial monthly payment and selected options. Details
Price
Subtotal
$$14.95
Subtotal
Initial payment breakdown
Shipping cost, delivery date, and order total (including tax) shown at checkout.
Ships from
Amazon.com
Amazon.com
Ships from
Amazon.com
Sold by
Amazon.com
Amazon.com
Sold by
Amazon.com
Returns
30-day refund/replacement
30-day refund/replacement
This item can be returned in its original condition for a full refund or replacement within 30 days of receipt.
Read full return policy
Payment
Secure transaction
Your transaction is secure
We work hard to protect your security and privacy. Our payment security system encrypts your information during transmission. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. Learn more
$7.28
Pages can have notes/highlighting. Spine may show signs of wear. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less Pages can have notes/highlighting. Spine may show signs of wear. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less See less
FREE delivery February 3 - 6. Details
Or fastest delivery Thursday, January 30. Details
In stock
$$14.95 () Includes selected options. Includes initial monthly payment and selected options. Details
Price
Subtotal
$$14.95
Subtotal
Initial payment breakdown
Shipping cost, delivery date, and order total (including tax) shown at checkout.
Access codes and supplements are not guaranteed with used items.
Ships from and sold by ThriftBooks-Baltimore.
Added to

Sorry, there was a problem.

There was an error retrieving your Wish Lists. Please try again.

Sorry, there was a problem.

List unavailable.
$14.95
FREE pickup Thursday, January 30 on orders shipped by Amazon over $35
Or Prime members get FREE pickup Monday, January 27. Order within 4 hrs 16 mins.

1.76 mi | Ashburn 20147

How pickup works
Pick up from nearby pickup location
Step 1: Place Your Order
Select the “Pickup” option on the product page or during checkout.
Step 2: Receive Notification
Once your package is ready for pickup, you'll receive an email and app notification.
Step 3: Pick up
Bring your order ID or pickup code (if applicable) to your chosen pickup location to pick up your package.
Only 1 left in stock (more on the way).
$$14.95 () Includes selected options. Includes initial monthly payment and selected options. Details
Price
Subtotal
$$14.95
Subtotal
Initial payment breakdown
Shipping cost, delivery date, and order total (including tax) shown at checkout.
Sold by
Amazon.com
Amazon.com
Sold by
Amazon.com
Returns
30-day refund/replacement
30-day refund/replacement
This item can be returned in its original condition for a full refund or replacement within 30 days of receipt.
Read full return policy
Payment
Secure transaction
Your transaction is secure
We work hard to protect your security and privacy. Our payment security system encrypts your information during transmission. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. Learn more
Kindle app logo image

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.

Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.

Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.

QR code to download the Kindle App

Follow the author

Carolyn Chute
Follow
Something went wrong. Please try your request again later.

The School on Heart's Content Road Paperback – Illustrated, July 8, 2009

by Carolyn Chute (Author)
3.7 3.7 out of 5 stars 53 ratings
See all formats and editions
{"desktop_buybox_group_1":[{"displayPrice":"$14.95","priceAmount":14.95,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"14","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"95","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"vE3s36nu7NJq3kKJRDk0pTin0TPJN4W2947l0R1yuxDAreFEHKinDCzB1SGioivkYt0LaQvzFtZrSfAZYxfFVWgXgE1AcDlq07sR%2B44mlOl5qFI1AJ5hPyAHZ9%2B4%2FgDotIGvhizoA%2Fk%3D","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"NEW","aapiBuyingOptionIndex":0}, {"displayPrice":"$7.28","priceAmount":7.28,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"7","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"28","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"vE3s36nu7NJq3kKJRDk0pTin0TPJN4W2gM4WPgbl0dzi%2BzvfeP61qDHByfSY1Zsv9192DUqscorTpjWGx5ys%2FpVAeKX%2FZQEnwBlLBiVV8dsTxocVeACsGZhCaDT4ecIDI3VRtgd0dwAq5acevyMB1aELIHeD%2FsqwWrswcJnV22wa42RTd2bMzK%2FsFJwv%2B1Hy","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"USED","aapiBuyingOptionIndex":1}],"desktop_buybox_group_2":[{"displayPrice":"$14.95","priceAmount":14.95,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"14","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"95","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"vE3s36nu7NJq3kKJRDk0pTin0TPJN4W2947l0R1yuxDAreFEHKinDCzB1SGioivkYt0LaQvzFtZrSfAZYxfFVWgXgE1AcDlq07sR%2B44mlOl5qFI1AJ5hPyAHZ9%2B4%2FgDotIGvhizoA%2Fk%3D","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"PICKUP","aapiBuyingOptionIndex":2}]}

Purchase options and add-ons

Carolyn Chute’s newest paperback returns to her beloved town of Egypt, Maine and delivers a rousing, politically charged portrait of those living on the margins of our society.
The School on Heart’s Content Road begins with Mickey Gammon, a fifteen-year-old dropout who has been evicted from home and seeks shelter in the Settlement—a rural cooperative in alternative energy, farm produce, and local goods, founded by “the Prophet.” Falsely demonized by the media as a compound of sin, the Settlement’s true nature remains foreign to outsiders. There, Mickey meets another deserted child, six-year-old “Secret Agent Jane”—a cunning, beautiful girl whose mother is in jail on false drug charges and who prowls the Settlement in heart-shaped sunglasses, imagining her childish plans to ruin the community will win her mother’s freedom. As they struggle to adjust to their new, complex surrogate family, Mickey and Jane witness the mounting unrest within the Settlement’s ranks, which soon builds to a shocking crescendo.
Vehement and poetic, The School on Heart’s Content Road questions the nature of family, culture, and authority in an intensely diverse nation. It is an urgent plea from those who have been shoved to the fringes of society, but who refuse to be silenced.
Previous slide of product details
  1. Print length
    400 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Grove Press
  4. Publication date
    July 8, 2009
  5. Dimensions
    5.25 x 1 x 8 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0802144152
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0802144157
  8. See all details
Next slide of product details

From the Publisher
Customer Reviews
3.8 out of 5 stars
373
3.5 out of 5 stars
67
4.3 out of 5 stars
22
Price $17.98 $16.41 $17.83
“If you care about fine writing, you owe it to yourself to read this book.” —The Boston Globe Deeply felt, scorchingly funny.” —Vanity Fair A New York Times Editors’ Choice

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Brave, passionate and raw, fiercely written . . . A profoundly human novel . . . Absolutely one of a kind.”—USA Today

“A roiling stew of cajoling comedy, political diatribe, and incisively rendered portraits of rural poverty and despair.”—The Washington Post

“A triumph of characterization and color . . . Vivid . . . Breathtaking . . . Enjoy the ride.”—The Christian Science Monitor

“[A] vibrant pastiche of a novel . . . [with] energy-on-the-loose prose and anti-establishment atmospherics.”—Chicago Tribune

“Carolyn Chute emerges as a modern-day Dickensian voice for the losers in class warfare. . . . [The School on Heart's Content Road is her]best book to date. . . . We have our Dickens now.”—San Diego Union Tribune

“Raw and strong and vivid, with deep resounding echoes of Faulkner and Upton Sinclair . . . Chute’s a scientist, brilliant and mad, lighting matches under beakers, mixing compounds, breaking words into their smallest divisible parts.”—The Los Angeles Times

“Like a ferocious bulletin from an alternate universe—tumbling, pell-mell, brilliant and strange—comes this explosive, discomfiting . . . beautiful novel.”—The New York Times Book Review

“Conscience-altering . . . Chute bares a hidden America . . . [offering] perspectives on the need for justice and mercy, a safe house for the heart.”—O, the Oprah Magazine

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Grove Press; First Trade Paper edition (July 8, 2009)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 400 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0802144152
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0802144157
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 12.8 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.25 x 1 x 8 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    3.7 3.7 out of 5 stars 53 ratings

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.
Carolyn Chute

Carolyn Chute

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read book recommendations and more.

Customer reviews

3.7 out of 5 stars
53 global ratings

Review this product

Share your thoughts with other customers
Write a customer review

Customers say

Customers find the writing style brilliant and poetic. They appreciate the character development, describing them as vital and real. The book is described as thought-provoking and reflective, with a stream-of-consciousness style that enhances the story's reality. Overall, customers describe it as a lovely and visionary tale of monsters, outcasts, and just plain folks.

AI-generated from the text of customer reviews

Select to learn more
Writing styleCharacter developmentThought provokingStory quality
5 customers mention "Writing style"5 positive0 negative

Customers find the writing style brilliant, poetic, and effective. They describe the author as one of the best writers to have ever lived.

"...Apparently, this is the first book in a five-book series. It's very effective writing, as it gives a good picture of how the United States has ended..." Read more

"...polemical than "The Beans of Egypt, Maine," but it is also more lyrical in its evocation of the weedy green summer lushness of the western Maine..." Read more

"...This is Chute on auto-pilot... devastating and heartrending...." Read more

"...Chute's prose is brilliant, sometimes poetic, often stunningly unusual. My favorite Chute is still MERRY MEN, but this one is a good companion." Read more

4 customers mention "Character development"4 positive0 negative

Customers enjoy the character development. They mention that characters change perspectives and become different people, like heroes turning into villains.

"...from location to location, from perspective to perspective, from character to character, in rapid succession...." Read more

"...The Settlement is home to a range of vividly drawn characters, including "Secret Agent Jane," a child who has lost her mother to prison, and Mickey..." Read more

"...of this book varies from her earlier novels, but it has similar character development and centers around salt-of-the-earth people living in the..." Read more

"...head; she can turn losers into winners, poverty into riches, heroes into villains...." Read more

4 customers mention "Thought provoking"4 positive0 negative

Customers find the book thought-provoking and engaging. They appreciate the stream-of-consciousness writing style that enhances the story's reality. The characters and their lives feel realistic, and the author has an amazing ability to turn the world on its head.

"...It's all written in a very effective stream-of-consciousness style, adding to the story's reality...." Read more

"...a decade ago, I remember that the characters and their lives felt so vital and real. I cared about those people, their suffering and small victories...." Read more

"Carolyn Chute has the amazing ability to turn the world on its head; she can turn losers into winners, poverty into riches, heroes into villains...." Read more

"Thought-provoking; brilliant literary prose..." Read more

3 customers mention "Story quality"3 positive0 negative

Customers enjoy the story's style. They find it lovely and part of their book club selections. The narrative adds to the story's reality, making it a visionary tale of monsters, outcasts, and just plain folks.

"...written in a very effective stream-of-consciousness style, adding to the story's reality...." Read more

"...with pink heart-shaped glasses -- make for a paranoid, visionary tale of monsters, outcasts, and just plain folks...." Read more

"Lovely story - part of my book club selections" Read more

Top reviews from the United States

  • Mainer
    5.0 out of 5 stars A book for reflection and action
    Reviewed in the United States on May 26, 2023
    Verified Purchase
    This book is probably not for everyone, but it should be read anyway, especially by wealthy elites and politicians (often the same thing). Ms. Chute is the voice of the people trampled by corporatism and a government not taking care of its people.
    Set in the early 2000s in the Oxford hills of western Maine, the story centers primarily around Gordon St. Onge, the Prophet, who is head of a commune/cult that advocates self-reliance and ecological advances. Gordon also has multiple wives, some of them young, that felt cringy. One of the children at the settlement is seven-year-old Jane, whose mother is in jail as an accessory for selling drugs without much hope of getting out soon. Mickey Gammon is a teen kicked out of his home by his step-brother, who's living in the woods, and joins a militia run by Rex. Various other characters, including a crow and the television, take over the story in small vignettes. It's all written in a very effective stream-of-consciousness style, adding to the story's reality.
    Apparently, this is the first book in a five-book series. It's very effective writing, as it gives a good picture of how the United States has ended up where it currently stands with rising poverty, poor healthcare, callous media, and politicians who don't give a damn. The next two books are out, and I've already bought them. These aren't heartwarming books with a HEA, but they depict the grim reality of much of America.
    One person found this helpful
    Helpful
     Report
  • Sandra Peterson
    4.0 out of 5 stars PERSPECTIVE ON LIFE FROM A SEVEN YEAR OLD
    Reviewed in the United States on March 4, 2014
    Verified Purchase
    As a person who was born and brought up in southern Maine, I found this book fascinating. Whether they existed then or not, I was not aware of militias or cooperatives, or "settlements". But I found Ms. Chute's story, supposedly set in the year 2000 or thereabouts, almost a parallel reality to what is happening at the present time, such as an "awakening" of the people of all the reasons we need to change the world. Ms. Chute's writing style also was something I never experienced. It, too, was fascinating, as it jumped from location to location, from perspective to perspective, from character to character, in rapid succession. From the eyes and ears of a little seven year old, we learn about alternative societies in northern Maine, and injustices like the incarceration of her mother and the inability of sick people to get the medication they need for survival, and that's just the tip of the iceberg!
    2 people found this helpful
    Helpful
     Report
  • B. Sweeney
    3.0 out of 5 stars too may characters
    Reviewed in the United States on February 8, 2009
    Verified Purchase
    i loved the Beans of Maine so i was thrilled to hear of another novel by the same author.
    the book was longgg, too many characters but the ones i loved were wonderful. maybe i'm getting old but it's hard to keep everyone in line during the telling.
    i wish the author would write an autobiography. i'm interested in her life too.perhaps more than her writing of others. it was the review of this book that described Ms Chute's lifestyle and family that got me to order it.
    i would recommend this book.
    5 people found this helpful
    Helpful
     Report
  • M. Feldman
    5.0 out of 5 stars Maine, away from the lighthouses and lobsters
    Reviewed in the United States on January 1, 2009
    Verified Purchase
    "The School on Heart's Content Road," Carolyn Chute's fifth novel, is set, like her first novel ("The Beans of Egypt, Maine") in the kind of small, rural inland community that can be found just about anywhere in Maine. It is a Maine mostly unknown to the summer tourists who populate the coast. Chute's Egypt, modeled loosely on a small western Maine town like Parsonsfield or Porter (the area where she lives with her husband), has an IGA supermarket, not a giant Hannaford's or Shaw's, and its back roads contain an assortment of decaying farmsteads, tidy ranch houses, and mobile homes.

    In this setting Chute places a utopian community, the Settlement, headed by the charismatic Gordon St. Onge, a man whose frailties and relationships bring to mind other American experiments in communal living: Brook Farm, Oneida, New Harmony. The Settlement is home to a range of vividly drawn characters, including "Secret Agent Jane," a child who has lost her mother to prison, and Mickey Gammon, a 15 year old homeless boy who lives in a tree and is drawn to two competing militias, the Border Mountain Militia and the True Maine militia, the first run by angry men, the second by a group of idealistic Settlement teenagers. Chute's narrative voice in "The School on Heart's Content Road" is an omniscient one, with little symbols (a crow, a cloud, a TV set and so on) marking each voice, a device that seems at first like an affectation but grows on you. Through these voices, with affection, anger, and despair, she depicts the face of rural Maine poverty and the grinding forces ("corporatism" is a word she uses a lot) that make it impossible for ordinary people to live decent lives.

    This novel is more furious and more polemical than "The Beans of Egypt, Maine," but it is also more lyrical in its evocation of the weedy green summer lushness of the western Maine hills and of the people who live there. Chute has the author's equivalent of perfect pitch for the way her Maine characters look and sound, including the French-accented speech one still encounters just about anywhere. I know that Chute is sometimes compared to Faulkner, but there is no landed gentry in her part of the world, no Sartoris looking backward, no Snopes on the make. Instead, there is just Egypt, a little community that has always been a bit of a backwater, and its utopian, rather 19th century reinvention in the form of the self-sufficient Settlement on Heart's Content Road, where the inhabitants experiment with solar and wind energy, tap the maple trees, take in every lost soul, and fend off reporters looking for a sensational story to lead the evening news. Chute's voice is deeply, truly a Maine one, but the residents of Egypt, mostly overlooked except when when it is useful to exploit them, could be living just about anywhere in America.
    24 people found this helpful
    Helpful
     Report