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Revision as of 17:47, 13 July 2009 by Stellarkid (talk | contribs)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)Carolyn Chute (born June 14, 1947) is an American writer and populist political activist strongly identified with the culture of poor, rural western Maine.
Chute's first, and best known, novel , The Beans of Egypt, Maine, was published in 1985 and made into a 1994 film of the same name, directed by Jennifer Warren. Chute's next two books, Letourneau's Used Auto Parts (1988) and Merry Men (1994), are also set in the town of Egypt, Maine.
Her 1999 novel Snow Man deals with the underground militia movement, something that Chute has devoted more of her time to in recent years. She is currently the leader of a group known as the Second Maine Militia and a fierce defender of the Second Amendment, keeping an AK-47 and a small cannon at her home in Maine. Chute also speaks out publicly about class issues in America and publishes "The Fringe," a monthly collection of in-depth political journalism, short stories, and intellectual commentary on current events. She once ran a satiric campaign for governor of Maine.
In 2008, she published The School on Heart's Content Road, which deals with a polygamist compound in Maine under scrutiny after an article on them goes national. The project was originally a novel of more than 2,000 pages, which has since been broken up into a projected five-part cycle.
Her job career has included waitressing, chicken factory worker, hospital floor scrubber, shoe factory worker, potato farm worker, tutor, canvasser, teacher, social worker, and school bus driver, 1970s-1980s; part-time suburban correspondent, Portland Evening Express, Portland, Maine, 1976-81; instructor in creative writing, University of Southern Maine, Portland, 1985.
Chute lives in Parsonsfield, Maine near the New Hampshire border, in a home with no telephone, no computer, no fax machine and an outhouse in lieu of a working bathroom. She is married to Michael Chute, a local handyman who never learned to read, and has a daughter named Joannah as well as several grandchildren.
Literary works
The Beans of Egypt, Maine. New York, Ticknor & Fields, 1985; revised edition published as The Beans of Egypt, Maine: The Finished Version, San Diego, Harcourt Brace, 1995.
Letourneau's Used Auto Parts. New York, Ticknor & Fields, 1988.
Merry Men. New York, Harcourt Brace, 1994.
Snow Man. New York, Harcourt Brace, 1999.
The School on Heart's Content Road. New York, Atlantic Monthly Press, 2008
Up River: The Story of a Maine Fishing Community (nonfiction, with Olive Pierce). Hanover, New Hampshire, University Press of New England, 1996.
other
Contributor, Inside Vacationland: New Fiction from the Real Maine, edited by Mark Melnicove. South Harpswell, Maine, Dog Ear Press, 1985.
Contributor, I Was Content and Not Content: The Story of Linda Lord and the Closing of Penobscot Poultry, by Cedric N. Chatterley and Alicia J. Rouverol. Carbondale, Southern Illinois University Press, 2000.
Contributor, Late Harvest: Rural American Writing Reed Business Information, Inc., 1991
Awards
First prize for fiction, Green Mountain Workshop, Johnson, Vermont, 1977. She was Guggenheim Fellowship and a Thorton Wilder Fellowship.
External links
- Interview with Carolyn Chute at newdemocracyworld.com
- Article in Salon.com
- Article in International Herald Tribune, 5 November 2008
- http://archive.seacoastonline.com/news/kerr/10_19kerr.htm The Culling: By D. Allan Kerr, "For Some Artists, The Struggle Doesn't End"