I like Clyde Edgerton. He does lovely Southern dialect (it isn't quite Louisiana, but then it's not meant to be) and he is very, very good at bringing out both the intrinsic goodness of his characters and their inability to see another point of view. And quite often that's the center of his novels: a pivotal character beginning to recognize that the Way We've Always Done It isn't necessarily the One Best Way.In Memory of Junior has those ingredients. And I liked those ingredients. But overall, I have to say, this is not his best work. In Memory of Junior is about a complicated family - a couple who have each been married before, have children by those marriages, and are now dying. Depending on who dies first, one of the stepchildren is going to inherit land worth millions of dollars. The unfolding drama is narrated by everyone from the Fullers (who visit the sick for fun) to the guy who delivers tombstones - ultimately, too many narrators, and a drama with too many subplots. But I truly loved this part, where one of the characters tries to explain to his brother about competing points of view:"The way something smells is not in this world. It's in our heads, because if it was in the world, you would not have flies landing on shit, because shit would stink to flies too, to everybody, to all living creatures. Why do you think a goddam fly will land on shit instead of a flower? Because a turd smells good to them, that's why."
What do You think about In Memory Of Junior (1993)?
This is one I would read over and over, again and again. What can I say about Clyde Edgerton? He's a genius. The discord that can happen in a family around the time of a parent's death is universal. It goes hand-in-hand with the complication of personal grief management. Also universal is the competition that comes into play whenever the death involves any possibility of the transfer of wealth.But in In Memory of Junior, it all takes a humorous spin. The borrowing and moving of tombstones, the failed suicide attempt of an ornery uncle, and the bravado of a teenager who survives a plane crash with cages of rattlesnakes will leave you shaking your head and saying, "Only in the South!"Edgerton has that way of the best Southern writers . . . that way of telling what is a very sad, touching story of human brokenness, but making you nod and laugh all the way through it. The characters are alive. The plot is so complicated as to be NEARLY convoluted, but still comprehendable. The delicate balance of the relationships create a spider web with a few questions left unanswered at the end of the book . . . as is the case with most great fiction. Pure genius.
—Perrin Cothran Conrad
