Do You like book Cool Hand Luke (1999)?
Cool Hand Luke might be familiar to you as the movie where Paul Newman eats fifty eggs for a bet, and this was certainly all I knew about it when I was asked to review the novel a little while ago. In actuality, the egg eating is only a very small part of the novel which is semi-autobiographical and describes Donn Pearce’s experiences on a Florida chain gang. I believe that this new edition has been brought out to coincide with a new play of the book which played last year in London starring Mark Warren as Luke.The novel begins in the time after the man that would become known as Cool Hand Luke has gone from the chain gang, so the tale is told, one prisoner to another, in flashback and with a certain sense of awe in the narrative. We first hear of Luke as he is brought to carry out hard labour after repeated escape attempts and as the story unfolds we discover that he is a decorated WW2 veteran whose life after the war has been far from easy. Luke is a very sympathetic character – it seems like he’s ended up on the chain gang though a series of unfortunate events, rather than through concerted law breaking. It’s this that makes Luke’s treatment at the hands of some of the guards, mostly Boss Godfrey, a little hard to stomach and by the end of the novel it’s a bit sketchy as to who is exactly in the wrong.According to the foreword by Antonia Quirke, who Donn Pearce himself was sent to prison, he had only a basic education but, thanks to sharing a cell with a man who read constantly, he was introduced to literature and improved his own writing enough to complete this novel. Some of the imagery in the novel is evocative and where Pearce has used vernacular and dialect it allows the reader to associate more with the characters, although it was hard to read at first.I won’t say that this was an enjoyable book as some of the experiences of the prisoners are quite harsh and upsetting, but it is well worth reading.
—Stacey Woods
Many know "Cool Hand Luke" as a movie that starred Paul Newman and had a famous part "What we have here is a failure to communicate" sampled before a Guns and Roses song "Civil War" (this line is not in the book by the way.) But, before all of that it turns out it was a pretty good book. To begin Donn Pearce can get scene setting happy. Sometimes tediously so. There are only so many ways to describe a can being kicked or a floor board creaking and you can do it so many times in a book to where it becomes a book about creaking floorboards. It felt at times very forced. While this might seem like a major problem, it is only a minor one. Primarily this is due to the slow monotonous lives these chain gangers live. Pearce does a wonderful job of making this boring beyond boring life come to life. You feel and understand the importance to simple things like an extra cathead biscuit for dinner. But, where I wish he had taken a little bit more time in being tedious was with his main character Luke. We are meant to see him as the ultimate "cool guy." He plays life cool, even though it is apparent turmoil is raging inside of him. This turmoil bleeds out from time to time which is how he is in the prison system. What we know about Luke we learn from the narrator, a fellow inmate, who feeds us Luke's background in drips and drabs. I really wish that he had gone further in explaining his Luke's background and motivations. While it is essential to keep him mysterious to the inmates, it is not necessary to keep him forever mysterious to the reader. I would recommend this book to anyone seeking a good, well written story. There's no deep mysteries and the fate of the characters seem apparent from the beginning. But, it was interesting traveling the road with them to get there.
—Alex Decker
The not so famous book on which the classic film was based. The author Donn Pearce also wrote the screenplay and had a minor role in the film as 'Sailor',who is the narrator of the book, which is based on Pearce's own experiences on a Florida chain gang.I thoroughly enjoyed the book and although I found it difficult to compare to the film, as its so long since I've seen it, I did recognise some of the scenes that are common to both. While reading the book the only picture I could conjure up in my mind of Cool Hand Luke was of Paul Newman, as it's such an iconic role. The book describes in detail, life working on a chain gang and the conditions that the inmates had to suffer on a daily basis and this is handled with humour and dignity. It also tells the story of Luke who arrives at the camp and eventually becomes a figure of legendary status to the inmates through his various exploits and escape attempts. I'll now have to watch the film again and see how it compares to the book.
—Ross Cumming
