Chute instantly draws in her reader by creating scenes in which only half the story is revealed, while still making it clear there is much to be discovered. Writing short, concise scenes that work as isolated stories serving as snapshots of her character's lives, Chute weaves together a narrative that refuses to conform to a typical plot structure. Through these scenes Chute depicts her characters moving through life without judging their actions, decisions or lifestyle. The detached quality of the narrative allows the rawness of life Chute depicts to tell the other side of the story. The Beans of Egypt comprise members of an impoverished family living to survive in rural Maine. Their lives are a daily struggle. Chute seeks to show their stories, as real and as important as any other in literature today. I found the novel to be about Beans' relationships, strategies and the richness they found within their lives. While the narrator refuses to judge the uneducated, overworked and underpaid of the lower class, it is clear the perspective is one of respect - respect for the Beans' survival and resilience. Furthermore, the tone of the novel allows the static nature of the plot to flourish. Each scene in the novel reached a small climax; much like the small climaxes of everyday life - a new friend, discovery in nature, a loss. With this style and technique Chute wrote a perfect ending in which it is clear that life will continue exactly the same for the Beans - men will go to jail, die, women will have babies...it will be different men and women, but they will continue to survive, regardless of the hardships they face.
The Beans of Egypt, Maine was Chute's first novel, placing her on the literary map, but not for the reasons she hoped. There are a few scenes and one relationship in particular many critics deem incestuous. Because of these alleged instances of incest, the book became a New York Times bestseller, and in the edition I have, Chute includes a postscript, refuting the presence of incest. In the postscript Chute meditates on the possibility of rewriting certain scenes to eliminate such suspicions, but cannot bring herself to because she wrote the scenes as they represent the relationships she envisioned and instead finds herself disgusted that American culture reads incest into particular images. While it is unfortunate that the mind make that leap, I think it is naive to wish to change that association with one book. I think it is important for the scenes to stay as written and use it as a counterexample of an instance in which an associated image is inverted. There is one relationship in particular, between Roberta and Beal that I found confusing, because some of the members of the Bean family are not Beans by blood, but rather by marriage or association. While both Roberta and Beal are supposed members of the Bean clan, it appears that they are sleeping together and Roberta's growing number of children are in fact fathered by the young Beal. Is this wrong? Is this incest? While the scenes with Roberta and Beal made me wonder about the role of incest, I looked to the narrative as my guide. Because the narrative never raised the issue, I accepted that perhaps the technicalities of the Roberta and Beal's relationship were not of importance.
Chute wrote a beautifully compact novel that grabs hold of the reader's heart from the first page and refuses to let go long after the novel is finished. The life of the Beans is haunting in its raw survival, lingering in the recesses of this reader's mind. Worth the read, even the cringe-worthy moments.
- KER
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