Book A Minute: East Of Eden
June 20, 2010
Condensed from vague memory
Some parts of California are very dusty. It’s hard to live there, and even harder to grow food, but an Irish family lives there anyway and they are named the Hamiltons. They are good people. One day, a stranger moves in nearby. The stranger’s name is Adam Trask. Adam was in the army but isn’t anymore because he ran away and became a vagrant but now wants to do right by himself and have a home. Adam has a brother named Charles who is strong and hard, and as adults, the two brothers live on a ranch near the Hamiltons.
In another town lives a young woman named Cathy. Cathy is mean-spirited and sexual and wants to hurt everyone she ever meets. One day, someone—a pimp—beats Cathy up and dumps her on the porch of the Trasks. Adam likes her. Charles doesn’t. Cathy still hates everybody. Adam falls for Cathy. Cathy uses Adam. They get married. Charles gets mad, then Cathy gets pregnant.
Charles dies. Cathy gives birth to twins, but still hates Adam, and also hates the twins, so she shoots Adam in the shoulder and runs away to a town nearby and changes her name to Kate and becomes a prostitute and eventually comes to own the brothel. The twins—Caleb and Aaron—grow up with Adam on the ranch with a Chinese man named Lee who is a better father than Adam. Lee is funny and the smartest man in the book, but he pretends not to speak English.
Caleb and Aaron grow up. Adam grows old. Lee stays the same. Eventually, Adam tracks down Cathy, whose name is now Kate, and yells at her for shooting him those many years ago. Cathy is unmoved. Cathy dies. Adam grows even older. Caleb starts a business so he can make money and make his father proud. Adam is not proud, but Adam does lose a lot of money trying to ship cold vegetables to Boston. Aaron wants to marry a pretty girl. The boys find out their mother is a prostitute and one of them is sad, so Aaron goes to war. Aaron dies there. Adam has a stroke. Lee stays the same. Adam blesses Aaron, and then the reader cries.
