Every story in this collection is a gem that has been embedded in the pegmatite ledges of Maine until the publication of this book. Some of the stories are American classics, some are classics only here in Maine, and some have emerged from obscurity to grace the pages of this amazing book. No matter which way the story came to be in "The Best Maine Stories" they will be loved by all (not just those from Maine)! My favorite story: The Viking's Daughter.

Olive Pierce and Carolyn Chute have teamed up to tell it like it is on the coast of Maine, in this home-spun fishing family community.

Olive with her keen eye for catching glimpses of light in phenomenal settings with her camera, and her obviously very relentless effort to live with these folks and document their spirits, has got to stand out as an American best-work The black and white photography is moving to the heart. She qualifies her perspective in the forward to the book, sharing a moment to lead the reader to look and listen to only one's unbiased emotions.

Carolyn Chute is, as always, bold and cutting to the point. She is poetically harmonizing with words and the photography, bringing an explanation to a perspective from deep within the soul--that place sometimes ignored by the demands of our fast-paced material world.

And the people in the book, there just some of the best folks you'd ever want to know. Why? I've not only read the book, I know them. They're real; and UP RIVER proves that low-income people are to be respected for their place in the spectrum of human experience.

Chute's cyclonic novel absolutely captivated me and revealed a world within the state in which I live, but one that will always exist outside of mine as an "outer-stater". The characters, their struggles and disappointments were utterly realized. However, I have a problem with Lloyd's final "Robin Hood" act. For nearly 700 pages, Chute gave us an utterly endearing and sensitive character in Lloyd Barrington, one who NEVER hurt anyone and only acted against faceless corporations. For him to act so contrary to that nature was unfounded, no matter the economic status of an individual. Any feedback?

Just as "Ulysses" was derided at it's debut, so has this book been. And just like "Ulysses" is now celebrated as a masterpiece of the millenium, so this book will be. Carolyn Chute, with only four titles in print, is the undisputed heavyweight champeen woman writer of the world. If you love Hemingway's wry just under the surface populism, you will love Chute. In fact, if you only read one book in your life, make it this one!

Carolyn Chute has an amazing talent at bringing to life the very heart and soul of her characters. This book exemplified that ability. Being from the same part of Maine of which she writes, I can identify strongly with these characters. Reading this book thrust me back in time to my youth in Maine---I was overwhelmed with nostalgia simply because Mrs. Chute wrote so well and was able to breathe life into her story. The characters of this novel were Maine personified. Anyone who grew up in Maine can understand what I mean---it wasn't like reading a novel, but rather was like actually being there and experiencing it. Thank you, Carolyn, for treating me to a part of my life I had previously thought forgotten and past.

This was a hard book to read, because the subject matter is unpleasant. The Beans are those people whose children cannot behave while at the grocery store, and who are blind and deaf to the mayhem they create. They are the ones who drive junky old cars through your neighborhood at 11 PM on a weekday with the radio really loud. They are the ones who chew with their mouths open at the fast food joint. Not a pretty group, not a pretty book.

There is a poem by Khalil Gibran about children, that goes something like: "They come through you, but they are not yours". Ms. Chute should have realized that this could also be applied to novels. She could have saved herself the trouble of inserting some commentary in the "new and improved" finished version. I would have given the book more stars if Ms. Chute had refrained from telling me how wrong I was in my reading of the novel. My consolation is that I was not alone in my mistakes. Apparently, lots of people have approached Ms. Chute with the same errors I have made. These misunderstandings have incensed Ms. Chute so much that she's been compelled to clarify her meaning for us all.

Too bad of a wasted time, because of course I like my reading of the book much better. This is the beauty of literature, this is what makes a book unique for each one. If someone else were doing the reading for us, it wouldn't be as much fun.

So, my advice is to pick up a copy of the "unfinished" version instead, and save yourself the nagging postscript.

This book is unlike any other book I've read, though it does remind me of Faulkner's "As I Lay Dying." It is so completely believable-the imagery is excellent--not excessive--just enough to create an image that you can feel with all your senses. The story unfolds in such an unexpected way...I couldn't put it down, and when I finished it, I couldn't stop thinking about it for days. I highly recommend it.

It's a telling comentary on American culture that there are 647 reviews of "Who Moved My Cheese" and only 3 of "The Beans". Marcuse was right! But then again he was wrong because here you are thinking about buying "The Beans of Egypt, Maine".

All the finest art creates a world of it's own. In the best art that world is a completely new creation, a singular vision and transformation of and by the artist. That world pulls you in, as a spiral, sometimes against your will, because of it's strangness to you, but if you're lucky the transformation that was the artist's becomes your transformation also. That is the "miracle" of great art, a miracle second only to life itself and that is what Chute has acomplished here. When other books of the late 20th century have faded away, this book will remain.

I purchased this book because I saw that people who liked "Back Roads" by Tawni Odell bought this title. I liked "Back Roads" a lot, but just didn't like this book at all. The story jumps forward repeatedly with very little context. The reader is left trying to figure out what year it is, and what is going on. I did not think the characters were developed well at all, and am still left wondering why the primary female character married the man she did.

Depressing story, strange characters, and not what I thought it would be. I struggled to get through it.

This is a totally unexpected literary treat. Written with an clear, earthy feel for the characters' ever-revloving entrampment in their culture and destinies, Ms. Chute creates an indelible picture of destitute life in the backwoods of Maine. The writing is creative and well-crafted enticing the reader to boldly view the borderless and interwoven lives of these subjects. This is reading on a par with "The Grapes of Wrath".

Absolutely compelling story. I found myself wishing better lives for these characters. I was riveted to the end by the emotional rollercoaster. A true depiction of the hard life of people in northern maine. A true gem.

I anticipated another wonderful Carolyn Chute book when I picked this one up. I did not find any of the colorful characters and unique story that she has entertained me with in the past. It was so far off from her other books, it makes me wonder where she wrote it and why she wrote it.

I guess I'm still just looking for someone to tell me why this book was ever written. Intrigued by The Beans of Egypt Maine and amazed at the breadth and perceptiveness and sheer wonder of Merry Men, despite it's controversial characters, I was struck dumb with disappointment for days after reading Snow Man. The characters are shallow and inconsistent (all of them-- left, right and center). The plot could have been taken from any murder "mystery." And the theme was not only blatantly sensational, but worse, devoid of any real substance. Chute opens the book with the warning that this is only a preview of a larger work to come, more fully exploring right-wing militias. If this is the way she's going to approach them, let's hope she was only kidding. Skip it, and bring us the next Merry Men!

I read Carolyn Chute's first novel, "The Beans of Egypt, Maine" in 1985. It introduced me to a world of the working poor in a rural area of Maine and I remember how it opened my eyes to their poverty. In "Snow Man", Ms. Chute's fourth novel, some of this territory is familiar. But unlike her other book, this is not a big rambling family saga. Instead, it is a tightly drawn and fast paced story of an urban terrorist, Robert Drummond, a member of a militia, who publicly murders a senator in Boston. Wounded, he flees to the home of another senator who is off in Washington, and therefore away from his home at the time. Here, this second senator's wife and daughter nurse the fugitive back to health and hide him from the authorities.

Ms. Chute's prose is tense and clear although she has a tendency to use words like "orangey" a little too often. She's particularly good at describing wounds and Robert Drummond's painful shoulder wound is a throbbing reminder of his discomfort. But the rest of his hiding-out time certainly is pleasant and there's seduction at play here too, and not just on a physical level. He's portrayed as a strong and sympathetic character and we hear his philosophy of life over and over again. It's shown in bitter contrast to the life of the two upper class women taking care of him. For example, when he tells them his wife had to go out and get a job, the senator's daughter, who just happens to be a professor of women's studies, makes a comment about the need for women to pursue careers and get out of the house. Then she asks what kind of job his wife got. Robert's answer is simple - "McDonalds". There are constant references like that illustrating yuppie naivety about what it means to be poor in America.

I read this novel quickly as the story moved along well, but I just couldn't get into the characters. It seemed unlikely that the two women would become so enamored with this man even though he comes across as attractive and macho. All the people are stereotypes, created by Ms. Chute to forward her own political philosophy. In a way this is refreshing because it is a philosophy not often seen in mainstream fiction. But I never really understood why Robert Drummond's frustration with his poverty and anger about corporate greed would make him want to take the life of another human being. I wonder though, if I, too, am just being naïve.

Those who might want a glimpse into the thought processes of a militiaman might find this book interesting. However, it is only a glimpse and doesn't go deep enough. And the story, while well crafted, is basically superficial.

"Maxine is alone eating eggs. She has her favorite tape on low, the voice of Waylon Jennings just humming. She swings one cowboy boot in hard happy circles. 'Mmmmmmmmm,' she hums along." This a "manipulation of the English language" that should guarantee Carolyn Chute a position in the forefront of literary achievement? I think not. Her affected unpretentiousness in presenting her downbeat characters in economically wrecked western Maine is excruciatingly boring reading. The self-consciously folksy style brings the Letourneaus and the Babbidge's off as a crew of loutish oafs who, like the characters in "Tobacco Road," sit around in their shacks, crowded with wives, husbands, ex-wives, step-children, half-sisters and -brothers, cousins, uncles, doing almost nothing except occasionally shooting each other's guard dogs and lamenting the depreciation of land value. It's labor trying to plough through a narrative in which nothing happens and most details seem random and aimless.

Carolyn Chute's manipulation of the English language alone warrants her place at the forefront of America's writers today. In Letourneau's Used Auto Parts, Chute continues to tell the story of the very poor of western Maine. This book, even more than The Beans truly evokes the world of the poor, the desperate, and the struggling; as well as their small but important joys and victories. This book truly opened my eyes to what is important in life.