My mama said the Hardbines had kids just about as fast as they could fall down the well and drown. Before that exact moment I don’t believe I had given much thought to the future.

But the day I saw his daddy up there like some old overalls slung over a fence, I had this feeling about what Newt’s whole life was going to amount to, and I felt sorry for him. Newt Hardbine was not my friend, he was just one of the big boys who had failed every grade at least once and so was practically going on twenty in the sixth grade, sitting in the back and flicking little wads of chewed paper into my hair. They eventually did come with the ladder and haul him down, and he wasn’t dead but lost his hearing and in many other ways was never the same afterward. About nineteen people congregated during the time it took for Norman Strick to walk up to the Courthouse and blow the whistle for the volunteer fire department. I have been afraid of putting air in a tire ever since I saw a tractor tire blow up and throw Newt Hardbine’s father over the top of the Standard Oil sign. On the 10th anniversary of its first publication, Harper Flamingo offered readers a special hardback edition, redesigned to be easy on the eyes and priced to be accessible to every lover of good fiction. Most readers of The Bean Trees discovered the novel in its paperback edition. Hers is a story about love and friendship, abandonment and belonging, and the discovery of surprising resources in apparently empty places. By the time she arrives in Tucson, she has acquired a completely unexpected child and must somehow come to terms with both motherhood and the necessity for putting down roots. But when Taylor heads west with high hopes and a barely functional car, she meets the human condition head-on. In The Bean Trees they found a spirited protagonist, Taylor Greer, who grew up in poor in rural Kentucky with the goals of avoiding pregnancy and getting away. Word of mouth spread slowly among booksellers, librarians, critics and readers with a passion to share their favorite books.

When it was first published, however, its author was unknown. It is now a standard in college literature classes across the nation and has been translated for a readership stretching from Japan to Romania. The Bean Trees is a book readers have taken to their hearts.

The bean trees