Helpful Score: 4
"Where Trouble Sleeps" by Clyde Edgerton from N. Carolina. This one takes us back to a small sleepy town circa 1950's located in S. Carolin, but it could be any town in the South. It grabbed me because of the characters I could almost remember by name from the small town I lived in at that time. Clyde has the knack for nailing the language and description of how the whole world revolves around that little town. He injects his humor in the right places to keep one turning the pages until the last one and you will regret it when that page comes to be............glenn
Here is an excerpt:
This fiddle player plays a solo in church. It's awful. Sounds like a cat dying. Somebody says out loud, "The fiddle player is a son of a bitch". "Who said that?" says the preacher, standing up, looking, Silence. The preacher continues, "Who was sitting beside whoever said the fiddle player was a son of a bitch?" Silence. "Who was sitting beside whoever was sitting beside whoever said the fiddle player was a son of a bitch?" Silence. A man stands up. "Preacher, I didn't say the fiddle player was a son of a bitch and I ain't I ain't sitting beside whoever said the fiddle player was a son of a bitch, and I ain't sitting beside whoever was sitting beside whoever said the fiddle player was a son of a bitch. But what I want to know is this: Who call that son of a bitch a fiddle player?"
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Here is an excerpt:
This fiddle player plays a solo in church. It's awful. Sounds like a cat dying. Somebody says out loud, "The fiddle player is a son of a bitch". "Who said that?" says the preacher, standing up, looking, Silence. The preacher continues, "Who was sitting beside whoever said the fiddle player was a son of a bitch?" Silence. "Who was sitting beside whoever was sitting beside whoever said the fiddle player was a son of a bitch?" Silence. A man stands up. "Preacher, I didn't say the fiddle player was a son of a bitch and I ain't I ain't sitting beside whoever said the fiddle player was a son of a bitch, and I ain't sitting beside whoever was sitting beside whoever said the fiddle player was a son of a bitch. But what I want to know is this: Who call that son of a bitch a fiddle player?"
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This is a story about a small town Lister, N.C. in the 1950s. It is about a little boy growing up and a stranger who comes to town.
Great, fun, quick read!
This was an enjoyable, quick read that takes us back to the mid 1950s to a very small southern town. We're briefly allowed into the lives of the town's inhabitants. A con man/thief wanders into town and decides to stay a short while to scope out the place to see what he can get. What he gets is more than he bargains for.
This book was very strange, but I really ended up liking it! You could take the title two different ways. Set in a small, quiet town in the 1950s.
Clyde Edgerton is one of my favorite southern authors. His novels are always a treat.
"Here, evil comes to sleepy Listre, N.C., circa 1950, in the form of a stranger with a pncil-thin mustache and a trunkful of dirty movies. Listre is the kind of rustic crossroads where the most exciting evevt in years was a collision between a mule and a pickup truck, where boys slip over to the Gulf station for a Nehi and a peek at the pinup calendar, and where everybody knows everybody else's secrets. It's the kind of place, in other words, where it seems like nothing ever changes---until the fateful day when everything changes at once."
