PARSONSFIELD – It took Carolyn Chute five years to write the 2,600-page manuscript she refers to as “the big book.”

Since then, the novel has languished for nearly five more years in publishing limbo, leaving the author wondering whether a work of such epic scale will ever find its way into print.

“The School on Heart’s Content Road” is a big book in every sense of the word, with an abundance of characters and multiple story lines. The main plot depicts a self-sustaining community in rural Maine that finds itself targeted by FBI agents determined to root out what the media portray to the outside world as a sinister and threatening cult.

“I agree that it’s long for one sitting at the beach,” Chute said. “It’s got everything – kind of like the Bible, but not really.”

She has no objection to the minor changes she calls “featherdusting,” but is dead set against chopping off major sections of the book or shifting its focus from the conflict between powerful business interests and the exploited underclass.

Now, Chute and her agent are exploring the idea of speeding up publication by breaking the novel into a trilogy and seeking a new publisher. She expects to have the first book ready within days and the two others in a matter of months.

The long delays have taken their toll. Chute battled periods of depression, worrying that she and her husband were sinking into the grinding poverty she wrote about in her signature first novel, “The Beans of Egypt, Maine.”

With the publication of “Beans” in 1985, Chute burst like a comet onto the literary scene. Critics gushed, comparing her to Faulkner and Steinbeck. Chute became a regular at writers’ workshops, and her best seller about the hardscrabble Bean clan found a place in high school and college classes.

Today, Chute speaks with disdain about that first book, viewing it as a relic of her past that she has sloughed off and moved beyond.

“It would be as if a person were a carpenter and they made this magazine rack for their mom when they were in junior high, and later they’re building cathedrals,” she said in an interview in her cluttered but comfortable home in the foothills of the White Mountains.

Chute continued the Bean saga in her second novel, “Letourneau’s Used Auto Parts.” That was followed by “Merry Men,” which she still regards as her favorite, and “Snow Men,” the most recently published book that was savaged by critics.

Some reviewers complained it was too political, but the anti-corporate and anti-big government message is as much a part of Chute as her Earth Mother mode of dress that includes a peasant-style skirt, long johns, mud boots and a kerchief that holds her reddish-blond hair in place.

Chute, whose home lacks indoor plumbing, recently made a grudging concession to modernity by acquiring a computer. But because she has no printer, she cannot use it to work on her manuscript.

“If I can master the e-mail, I’ll be lucky,” said Chute, who turned 55 this month. “It takes a lot of time, and I’m hauling water, lugging wood, doing work and taking care of my garden.”

When she isn’t working on her novel, Chute spreads her populist message through the 2nd Maine Militia, her anti-establishment soul mates who enjoy shooting guns while railing against big business and government bureaucrats. She says the group is neither left-wing nor right-wing, but “no wing.”

Chute’s rebellious nature, activist bent and taste for satire have led her to engage in protests in support of workers’ rights, float the prospect of a write-in campaign for governor and contribute a “Dear Revolutionary Abby” column to the Maine Commons, an alternative newspaper.

In so doing, she has become an advocate for white working-class men, a group she believes has emerged as society’s scapegoat with no defenders.

“Even dogs and cats have animal rights,” she said. “Working-class white men are the last ones left.”

With her husband, Michael, on disability and the advance that Chute received from Harcourt Brace & Co. for the big book now a distant memory, she said the couple has been struggling to make ends meet.

Lack of affordable health care for the poor has long been a source of rage for Chute, who says her three Scottish terriers – Betty, Florence and Margaret – are the first in the household to get their needs met. It was only when she was able to pay for the services of a foot doctor to tend to an ingrown toenail that her gait improved and she began to feel better overall.

The couple got some help from friends, who staged benefits to help pay doctor bills and replace a broken windshield in Michael Chute’s truck. “We’re rich in friends,” she said.

As Chute traces the lives of community members in “The School on Heart’s Content Road,” she chronicles the struggles of a family with a dying child and no health coverage. The family’s plight recalls Chute’s loss of a child that was stillborn 20 years ago, a tragedy that she blames on her inability to get timely hospital care because she and her husband lacked insurance.

Events that unfold within the community are set against the bigger picture of what is taking place nationwide as Chute shows how decisions by government bureaucrats, corporate leaders and the media affect the lives of her characters.

Chute’s agent, Jane Gelfman, said she is confident that the book will find a publisher and win recognition as a major work of American fiction.

Rejecting the idea that Chute may be out of fashion, Gelfman said the novelist is more relevant than ever, particularly in the post-Enron era. She said the themes of the book are sure to resonate with readers.

“It says a lot,” she said. “It’s about community, it’s about the necessity for interdependence, it’s about the influence of corporations on American private as well as public life. It’s very timely.”