Clyde Edgerton

I loved this quirky book - I love most of Clyde Edgerton's books - but I have a suspicion that you have had to have lived in a small Southern town in the 1950's to fully appreciate it. It's the old story - a stranger, in this case up to no good, comes to town. His name is Jack Umstead but he has many aliases and side lines, and lies...beguiling some of the townsfolk and raising red flags with others. Trouble is a bulldog, and also famously locally, a barometer who invariably chooses to sleep show more indoors when it's going to rain. Stephen Toomey is a small boy who observes an awful lot (in all senses of the word) from his perch on the porch. I found it a rip roaring good story with a lot chuckles, wry truths, and an eye-popping ending. A cast of cCharacters I'll remember a long time... show less

In Listre, North Carolina, in 1950, life is centered around the Baptist church where salvation is as easy as walking down the aisle, and/or Train's place, where you can buy a cold beer to drink while you wait for your oil change or just set a spell. The state highway does pass through, and there's that blinker light at the intersection now, since that awful mule/truck collision that almost crippled Train. But his old bulldog, Trouble, still sleeps in the middle of the road, unless rain is show more coming. Occasionally somebody from somewhere else stops in town and upsets people, but outsiders should know that even harmless little old ladies keep loaded shotguns handy, and "trouble" isn't just some gimpy old dog. This was fun, although I've enjoyed other Edgertons more. He has a dark humor that I really appreciate, and he can lacerate a hypocrite with such compassion that they feel loved. show less

Edgerton has a real talent for taking a "little" story, filling it with indelibly drawn characters, and honing the Real Life elements so that eventually they will sting real good. In The Night Train he gets you laughing over a dancing chicken and teenage boys up to harmless devilment, while showing you both the meanness and the goodness that define human nature. The story line follows two boys, one white and one black, as they discover and embrace the music of James Brown in 1963 in North show more Carolina. As one blurber put it, "Edgerton's message is not there until you discover you agree with it." He's like Fannie Flagg in this--maybe a bit subtler. Recommended. show less

At 78, Mattie Rigsbee is slowing down. At least, that's what she keeps telling herself and anyone who will listen in her little North Carolina hometown. Why, she's gotten to the point that she waits to do her lunch dishes until after she's watched All My Children! When a little stray dog shows up on her back porch, she immediately proclaims to all around that she cannot keep him, although she keeps feeding him even as she tells herself she's going to call the dogcatcher "right now". She does show more (eventually) call that dogcatcher, and that's the opening domino in a series of unfortunate events that lead Mrs. Rigsbee into situations she never in a million years thought she would ever experience.

There's nothing overly deep or profound about this book, but I found the sometimes madcap Southern humor quite enjoyable. The tone is reminiscent of Fannie Flagg or Bailey White. The predicaments Mattie gets herself and others into — and out of — had me giggling on occasion, as did her visit with her older sister Pearl to pick out their caskets. The refusal of Mattie's two grown children to get on with it and get married and give her grandchildren before it's too late (Robert is in his mid-40s and never married, though he has an impressive lamp collection; Elaine is in her late 30s and too involved with women's and other social issues to knuckle under to a husband) is maddening to Miss Mattie, but it's expressed in ways understood by anyone who's ever endured the family interrogation at Thanksgiving: "So, are you seeing anyone? Why not? You're not getting any younger, you know!" show less