The school on Heart's Content Road

"The School on Heart's Content Road spirals out from the story of Mickey Gammon, a disaffected fifteen-year-old dropout who has been evicted from his home by his overwrought half-brother. With the help of his new friend, Rex York, the captain of the local militia, Mickey is introduced to t...

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Main Author: Chute, Carolyn.
Format: Books Print Book
Language: English
Published: New York : [Berkeley, Calif.] : Atlantic Monthly Press ; Distributed by Publishers Group West, c2008.
Edition: 1st ed.
Subjects:
Summary: "The School on Heart's Content Road spirals out from the story of Mickey Gammon, a disaffected fifteen-year-old dropout who has been evicted from his home by his overwrought half-brother. With the help of his new friend, Rex York, the captain of the local militia, Mickey is introduced to the secretive world of the Settlement. Run by a man known to many as 'The Prophet,' the Settlement is a rural cooperative in alternative energy, farm produce, and locally made goods. Falsely demonized by the media as a compound of sin, the Settlement's true nature remains foreign to outsiders. It is at the Settlement where Mickey's life collides with that of another deserted child, six-year-old Jane--a cunning, beautiful girl of mixed race, whose mother is in jail on trumped-up drug charges. 'Secret Agent' Jane prowls the Settlement in her heart-shaped sunglasses, imagining that her childish plans to bring down the community will reunite her with her mother. As they struggle to adjust to their new, complex surrogate family, Mickey and Jane witness the mounting unrest within the Settlement's ranks, which soon builds to a shocking and devastating crescendo..." -- from publisher's web site.
Physical Description: 384 p. ; 24 cm.
ISBN: 9780871139870
0871139871
Author Notes: A high school dropout at age 16, Carolyn Chute has been described as a shy, genial woman with idiosyncratic political views. Almost immediately after dropping out of school, Chute married and had a daughter. After the marriage ended in divorce, Chute held a variety of low-paying jobs, including driving a school bus, working on a potato farm, and plucking chickens to support herself and her child.

In 1978, Chute completed high school and began taking classes at the University of Maine. While attending college, Chute started writing stories, and eventually had her work published in area magazines. Chute's first novel, The Beans of Egypt, Maine, published in 1986, details what it was like growing up in a poverty-stricken town. The characters and setting of her successful first novel were continued in Letourneau's Used Auto Parts (1988) and Merry Men (1994).

A member of the 2nd Maine Militia, Chute is lobbying for several causes. Among the causes are limiting campaign contributions to $100 per citizen, extending the right of free speech and assembly to work-sites and shopping malls, banning lobbyists from the political process, and limiting the number of newspapers or magazines that can be owned by any single corporation to one.

(Bowker Author Biography)