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Meandering from comic set pieces to hilarious digressions, Call and Response perfectly captures the peculiar lilts and rhythms of the South -- and spins a magical tale of love and all its manifold complications. The novel centers on Nestor Tudor, a middle-aged widower who is overfond of Ancient Age and Old Gold filters. TR Pearson interweaves the story of Nestor's late-blooming, and ultimately unrequited, affection for Mary Alice Celestine Lefler with parallel stories of true love and broken show more hearts, young love and cheating hearts, and every other variety of courtship imaginable. Extravagantly funny and overflowing with the rich cadences and droll loquacity of Southern storytelling, Call and Response is a remarkable joy to read. show lessTags
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Member Reviews
Enjoying this, but it takes some getting used to the writing style. Those long, run-on sentences! But they really add to the humor. One thing I've noticed is that this is really a collection of short stories set in the same town.
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Author Information
32+ Works 2,115 Members
T.R. Pearson is a LibraryThing Author, an author who lists their personal library on LibraryThing.
Series
Common Knowledge
- Original publication date
- 1989
- Important places
- Neely, North Carolina, USA
- Dedication
- For Mr. and Mrs. Lonnie J. Betts
- First words
- It had come to him from his daddy by way of his daddy's brother Tyler Lamont who'd wrapped it in a rag and laid it for safekeeping in the back of his uppermost bureau drawer which was for socks chiefly and cotton briefs and r... (show all)ibbed sleeveless undershirts as well and not heirlooms ever but this once which was probably how come Tyler Lamont forgot presently that back of his socks and his briefs and his undershirts was an item in a rag he'd been charged to pass on and bequeath.
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)Nestor Tudor smoked his Old Gold filters and Dick Atwater, who did not smoke, smoked Nestor Tudor's Old Gold filters too and, as they drew and inhaled, their cigarette coals illuminated their faces and a faint breeze carried their sparks and ashes off across the yard into the darkness which was anymore complete and thoroughgoing but for the ever so scant glow from the piece of moon that had climbed to the south of them and hung what appeared directly over town where it threw its paltry light down on the boulevard and the square and rooftops roundabout with the people beneath them who slept already and the people beneath them who didn't yet, the ones with cats to chastise and pitiful states to lament, the ones with ankles to elevate and icepacks to apply, the ones with almanacs to read upon the ring and wives to berate them as they did it, the ones with women to admire them like they would if they possibly could admire themselves, and the ones as well like Mr. and Mrs. Phillip J. King, Mr. and Mrs. Phillip J. King who had retired together to the bedroom where Mrs. Phillip J. King had slipped off to the halfbath to apply her unctions and ointments and various beauty creams while Mr. Phillip J. King had disrobed pretty much entirely but for his fuzzy blue socks and was sitting in the altogether atop the bedclothes awaiting Mrs. Phillip J. King who did in fact presently swing open the bathroom door and had embarked even upon a bit of talk further about her triumphant stew when she spied Mr. Phillip J. King, or spied anyway the moderately prominent token of his enthusiasm which fairly completely punctuated her and allowed Mr. Phillip J. King the occasion to slap at the mattress, cut his eyes sidelong like a variety of devious and sophisticated mackerel, and tell to her, "Babydoll," which in conjunction with the token itself induced Mrs. Phillip J. King to un-Scotchtape her hair and ungirdle her blue quilted housecoat and utterly spook and unnerve her terrier Ittybit that she drove before her as she charged across the room with as near as she could get anymore to abandon.
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Statistics
- Members
- 67
- Popularity
- 464,516
- Reviews
- 1
- Rating
- (4.35)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 3
- ASINs
- 1
