The Beans of Egypt, Maine

By: Carolyn Chute

Narrated by: Joyce Bean, William Dufris

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 aunt, the perpetually pregnant Roberta; and his cousin Beal, a man gentle by temperament but violent in defeat who marries his pious neighbor, Earlene Pomerleau before poverty kills him.

Through her story of the Beans's struggle 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.

©1995 Carolyn Chute (P)2008 Brilliance Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

"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)

Good book....

·There Are No Children Here: The Story of Two Boys Growing Up in the Other America - Alex Kotlowitz

.The Blackman's Guide to Understanding the Blackwoman - Shahrazad Ali

.Sex, Time, and Power: How Women's Sexuality Shaped Human Evolution - Leonard Shlain

.The Myth of Male Power: Why Men are the disposable sex - Warren Farrell, Ph.D

.The Rational Male - Rollo Tomassi

·The Wretched Of The Earth - Frantz Fanon

·Dark Light Consciousness: Melanin, Serpent Power, and the Luminous Matrix of Reality by Edward Bynum

·Blacked Out Through Whitewash: Exposing the Quantum Deception/Rediscovering and Recovering Suppressed Melanated by Suzar

·Christopher Columbus & the Afrikan Holocaust: Slavery & the Rise of European Capitalism by John Henrik Clarke

·They came before Columbus: The African Presence In Ancient America by Ivan Van Sertima

·Stolen Legacy: The Egyptian Origins of Western Philosophy by George G M James

·How Europe Underdeveloped Africa by Walter Rodney

·The Delectable Negro: Human Consumption and Homoeroticism Within US Slave Culture by Vincent Woodard

·Red Summer: The Summer of 1919 and the Awakening of Black America by Cameron McWhirter

·Germany's black holocaust, 1890-1945 by Firpo W. Carr

·Superior: The Return of Race Science by Angela Saini

·The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America by Richard Rothstein

·The Willie Lynch Letter and the Making of a Slave by Willie Lynch

·Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America by Ibram X Kendi

·White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America by Nancy Isenberg

·The Man-Not: Race, Class, Genre, and the Dilemmas of Black Manhood by Tommy Curry

·They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South by Stephanie Jones-Rogers

·The Destruction of Black Civilization : Great Issues of a Race from 4500 B.C. to 2000 A.D. by Chancellor Williams

·The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism by Edward E. Baptist

·Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II by Douglas A. Blackmon

·The Accident of Color: A Story of Race in Reconstruction by Daniel Brook

·Wilmington's Lie: The Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremacy by David Zucchino

·African Slavery in Latin America and the Caribbean
By Herbert S. Klein, Ben Vinson III

·The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander

·John Brown, Abolitionist: The Man Who Killed Slavery, Sparked the Civil War, and Seeded Civil Rights by David S. Reynolds

·Sex and Racism in America by Calvin C Hernton

· The Blackwoman's Guide to Understanding the Blackman - Shahrazad Ali

Accents

Not really Down East /Maine accents… more like Brooklyn or Jersey but otherwise a good listen.

Accents?

The female reader's accents seemed to vary from (very occasionally) Maine to (Kentucky)? They were so inconsistent as to be distracting. It would likely have been better if the author herself had done the reading.

A population of America many are unaware of

It’s real
I’ve known so many like the Beans as I was growing up in rural America
They are forgotten people
A minority too afraid to have a voice
Thank you for telling their story

I really enjoyed the book!

The book was great! I laughed at times (and not many books have made me laugh) and was sad at times. I loved the narraters...they did great!

1985-2018

I read this book when it was first published. Listening to it now was amazing. I’m so glad I revisited this wonderful story.

Woven throughout

Thoroughly enjoyed the characters. The author pulls texture and smell using only her words. loved.

As a yuppie who grew up poor in Maine

The writing style is a little jarring but it speeds up the pace and keeps the story interesting. I think it focuses on extremes but even still a number of aspects resonated with me and I think it provides important social commentary. I also found the post script particularly interesting

Interesting book about poverty in the US

I liked the book. It made me think that there are other families in the US struck by poverty; perhaps Appalachia, Louisiana...and more. I found it sad and I feel fortunate to live where I do and have opportunities many don't have in the US and other parts of the world.

Not terribly engaging

The story was not punchy enough. The author seems to just ramble on. Action is only occasional.