Letourneau's Used Auto Parts

Mrs. Chute has done something eternal. It's as though she has carved the Pieta with a chain saw; a Pieta far more moving, poignant and beautiful than Michelangelo's. Society is only a precarious charade against chaos. Your fine manners and social skills aside; we are these people and always have been.

Carolyn Chute is basically an effortless genious. I loved the imagery of the trailers in the woods with their homey curtains. Thank you, Carolyn.

This is a highly amusing cacaphony of Maine voices. Crowe Bovery's hands are tatooed with auto grease. He has spent three days with the college kid, Jill Luce. He shows up at the house of his boss. The boss's wife doesn't know Crowe has just lost his wife and children in a fire. Crowe smells like a motor running hot. Lillian Greenlaw is an ex-girl friend of Big Lucien Letourneau, Crowe's boss. Lillian Greenlaw is the second wife of E. Blackstone Babbidge. Big Lucien has a reputation as a man of gold. At Miracle City Big Lucien lets in trailers. The leaders of the town are concerned the place will turn into a slum. Big Lucien's wife is so pregnant she doesn't attend a tupperware party. An old hippy, former wife of Big Lucien, visits. Hippies have big city accents, great hair, and love the outdoors. There used to be hippies on the property living in tents. Big Lucien's present wife's name is Keezhia. One of his former wives, Maxine, mother of Little Lucien among others, lives in Miracle City, too. Maxine works at the mill. Patty and Armand Letourneau have a son, Severin. Patty works at a bar called the Cold Spot. People are ordered away from Miracle City. They are in violation of a new code. The back cover describes Carolyn Chute as a literary Diane Arbus. I second the characterization.

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.