I’d love to tell you what this book was about, but I’m afraid it wasn’t about very much for me. There is a lot of blood, gore, fighting, and mistreatment. There are a lot of sexual encounters (thankfully not too graphically depicted) and a lot of references to sexual encounters that have already taken place and produced innumerable sad and unkempt children. There is squalor and poverty and lack of education, and men who have a too easy affinity for guns.

For me, it is fine to expose this way of life and its underbelly if you have some point to make regarding it besides the obvious one--that it exists. I just could not unearth any other reason for this book than that. I did not see any hope for these characters, but I also did not see any awareness in them, any desire to be better or different, any struggle to overcome or any love of or ambition for their children. There were no qualities that seemed to redeem them. They just seemed content to have this squalid way of life and to want to perpetuate it indefinitely.

I kept waiting for something to happen. Not another roll in the hay or senseless fight or unwanted baby...an event that would bring some kind of meaning to one of these characters. I waited for Earlene to realize that the last thing she really wanted to be was a Bean. But, alas, I waited in vain. I suppose once a Bean, always a Bean. ( )

Back in the mid-1980s The Beans of Egypt, Maine was a very popular book, but since that time it seems to have faded from view. Decades later, I have finally gotten around to reading it. This collection of interrelated short stories about the hardscrabble lives of the redoubtable Bean clan is filled with fantastical elements such as creepy skin conditions, hissing babies, and unusual eye colors, as well as more standard plot points like poverty and incest. These make for a very strange reading experience. The writing is striking in places; however, I found the large cast of characters and loose storytelling confusing. I have no immediate plans to read Chute's other books set in Egypt, Maine. ( )

I felt compelled to finish this book even though I wasn't really enjoying it. I am not a fan of the author's writing style; to choppy for my taste. The story is about the Bean family and the extreme poverty they live with. There are so many questionable sexual relationships in this story, the author states it's not incest, but I'm not sure what else to call it. I was trying to find a redeeming quality in just one of the characters in the novel, but, alas, that was not to be. I have Chute's other two books in my library and now I wonder if I will take the plunge and read those. ( )

Review: The Beans of Egypt, Maine by Carolyn Chute.

The book is about poverty at ground level and how almost everybody is related to someone more closely than they one might wish. It’s about births, deaths, survival and everything in-between. Chute’s method of writing is primitive but pleasant amidst humor. The story is fissure with atmosphere, captivating imagery and has extended metaphor to begin an actual discussion on primitive matters. Chute attempts to show those who have never known or seen the lives of the unfortunate that those people are people just like everybody else. If you’re poor it does not mean you have no dignity, pride, or worthiness however, society can be cruel sometimes. The demeaning, labeling, and insults still go on today. This book captivates the lives of these unfortunate people. Page after page you follow their lives as if you were there. Some people might take the story and be offended but I believe Carolyn Chute was justifying and understanding of her characters she crafted within the pages of this book. Her characters teach us about truth, honor, respect, and love. This book could be written for any timeline lineage because primitive matters are always and will be engulf in our societies.

The story is narrated through the eyes of young Earlene Pomerleau, who was not a Bean family member but was right in the middle of the growing family. She was fascinated with the neighbors (The Bean family) next door. She watched the unruly children living next door, the seediness, the drinking and other behaviors of the Bean family. Earlene’s father warned her against having anything to do with what he calls the disreputable clan. They are described as a horrifying family in a situation of poverty, acts of inbreeding, having many fatherless children and stories of their escapades. I found Earlene a likable character and as the story was told there weren’t any fairytale-like solutions which I felt gave the story credence to the sad realities of poverty.

The story does have sadness within the passages of the setting and characters however I’m grateful to have read this book. I’m also proud to be a Mainer, and I am one of the ones who understand the poverty life and what it takes to be a survivor of unkindness.
That’s how I and my eight siblings childhoods weaved and we survived and we are someone… respectively…...
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Slowly rotting mobile homes. A yard full of broken down machinery being sold for parts. The stench of old cigarettes and motor oil. Illegal hunting out of season. Gum disease. Jail time. Illiteracy. Unwanted pregnancies. Developmental problems. Physical and mental abuse. Children who go to bed hungry. Praise Jesus!

This book is a brutally honest depiction of grinding rural poverty presented in a matter-of-fact voice. If you want a hopeful story with plot resolution, look elsewhere. This book doesn’t end, it just stops.

I’m afraid modern urbanites will think these vignettes of a multi-generational tribe of hillbillies in rural Maine are exaggerated… but believe me, they are spot on. These are my people. My dad “got out”.
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