"a real lot"

[Charles Doyle]

The popular mystery writer Robert B. Parker, near the end of his new novel _Sea Change_, has this exchange:  "They're with their mother" / "Who is not a real lot better than their father" (p. 290).

"Not a real lot better" sounds terribly unidiomatic to me!  I would say "not a whole lot better."  Parker, a deft stylist, lives in Boston; he is (or has been) on the faculty of Boston University.  His books are set (mostly) in New England.  Is "a real lot better" a New Englandism?

--Charlie

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