RANEY, Clyde Edgerton's first novel on why it's not a sin to marry a Whiskeypalian even when you are a Free-Will Baptist First of all, the illustration of Raney by Clyde Edgerton is not that of the first edition, first printing. Seeing as how I'm a goodreads librarian I should fix that. First Edition, Algonquin Books, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 1985Yep. Fixed. That's now the correct image for the First Edition, First Printing of RaneyI know. I have one. It's signed. The REAL first printing is green with a guitar on it. The title, Raney is printed in a block background of hot pink.I'm gloating. I'm gloating because it was a very, very short first printing. I'm gloating because Clyde Edgerton signed it for me and then serenaded me and my wife, picking his banjo, while singing "Safety Patrol." To hear more of Clyde Edgerton's Music visit http://www.clydeedgerton.comWatch this: Clyde Edgerton is singing "Way Down in Columbus, Georgia," while playing the banjo. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25NVIX...It's not Safety Patrol, but it gives you a good idea of how this man comes across at a book signing.It's a good thing I finally met Clyde Edgerton. I had literally stalked him for several years. My brother-in-law, Bill, as in Bill from Dallas, as opposed to Cousin Bill from Shreveport, got tired of Connecticut winters and moved to Wilmington, North Carolina. Clyde Edgerton lives in Wilmington, teaches at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, and likes to write while having breakfast at The Salt Mine, one of two restaurants of the same name. Among other things, Edgerton teaches creative writing at UNCWI confess. I stalked him. In a polite way. I ate breakfast at the Salt Mine five mornings in a row. I didn't have my cholesterol checked for six months thereafter because I would have had to fess up to my lady doctor, who is beautiful, that I had spiked my LDL and lowered my HDL, while stalking an author who has written five New York Times Notable Books of the Year, was a Guggenheim Fellow, was admitted to membership of the Southern Writers Association, and washes his own pickup truck in the front yard of his house--HIMSELF. I never caught him there. But I highly recommend the homemade corned beef hash, eggs over easy, with wheat toast. Oh, and on the lunch special, I recommend the chicken fried steak. That's on Saturdays. He washes his truck on Saturdays.I told you. I stalked him. When I confessed to Clyde that I had stalked him, he kind of grinned. When I described his house, his pickup truck and his dog, he was a little rattled. Not to worry. My favorite independent bookseller told him I was harmless--for the most part. And you will notice that no photograph of Clyde washing his truck appears below. Even a literary stalker must have some degree of ethics. *ahem*Edgerton was born in Durham, North Carolina in 1944. He was raised just outside Durham in a little place called Bethesda. He came from a long, long line of cotton and tobacco farmers. Fortunately, his parents were the first of their family to leave the farm. Otherwise, well--Clydge Edgerton would not have become an author I would have ended up stalking.He doesn't look like it, but Edgerton was a fighter pilot for five years from 1966 to 1971. You can read about Edgerton's love of flight and his combat flights over Vietnam in Solo: My Adventures in the Air. Edgerton flew combat reconnaissance over the Ho Chi Minh trail for over a year. Sticking with a downed pilot until his comrade was pulled out earned him the Distinguished flying cross. Flip through any biographical article about the man and you'll find out most folks figured he would end up being a baseball player or a rock musician. His parents and his twenty three aunts and uncles never took him to have a literary bent. But it was listening to all those storytellers in his family that turned him into the writer with an extraordinary ear for dialog and an eye for the natural humor of human foibles.Characters flow out of Clyde Edgerton as easily as water falls off the sides of mountains in Western North Carolina. By the time you've become familiar with Edgerton's books, you realize this is a man who knows and loves people, warts and all.Now, Raney was not the first Edgerton I read. The first was Walking Across Egypt which came out in January, 1987. I was so enthusiastic over that one I was ecstatic to find a paperback of Raney.I have read Raney three times. The last time was when I read it aloud to my wife. I figured she would enjoy it, especially since Clyde had sung "Safety Patrol" to her. And she did enjoy it. Immensely. She giggled, hooted, belly laughed, cried, guffawed and snorted a few times. Me, I'm impervious to such things and just kept right on reading, in character, of course. I am a professional. Do not try this at home. The Carol Burnett gang would not have cracked me up. When you are in character, you are in character.Generally, you'll find a book blurb that says read it, read it aloud, read it to someone else (I did) and give it away (I won't.) Buy your own copy. Stalk Edgerton yourself. It's good for you. The breakfast at The Salt Mine is not good for you. But it is good. Stalking authors is fun. It builds character. Maybe he'll sing to you, too.Anyway, Raney Bell is a very proper young Lister, NC, lady, who sings like a nightingale--bluegrass ballads--that'll have you tearing your heart out and stomping it flat, or fluttering around like a blue bird because it's one of the happy toe tapping ones. She is a Free Will Baptist. God's in his Heaven and all's right with the world, and her mother, daddy, and all her aunt's and uncles, too.Then up pops this new librarian down at the library in downtown Lister. His name is Charles. And he is not from Lister. He is all the way from ATLANTA, Georgia. You know what those people are like in Atlanta. They have funny ideas. They are LIBERAL. And Charles is not Free Will Baptist. He is EPISCOPALIAN! You KNOW what THEY are like.But Charles loves bluegrass music as much as Raney. He can sing and play the guitar, too. You would NEVER know he was from Atlanta if he would only sing songs. But he has to come to dinner and you can't sing all the time. And when you can't sing you have to talk politely. But Charles goes telling Uncle Nate about there being no difference between black people and white people. You could have heard a pin drop.Now, all this happens back in 1975. And it does happen in NC. And sometimes, people like Uncle Nate who was never the same after the WWII, uses the N WORD.What you all (I have translated that for Y'ALL) have to understand is that people like Uncle Nate and Raney and all her kin don't have a mean bone in their body. Their politically incorrect thinking comes from ignorance, not malice.You ALL will see this when it turns out that Charles' best man is B-L-A-C-K! It turns out he's no stranger than Charles' own mother who is a VEGETARIAN!!! Now, feeding her at the reception is gonna be hard.So in this short little book you all will be sad to see it over, we see Raney get married to an Episcopalian from Atlanta, GA. An' we get to see how two people as different as day and night live and love together for a year and grow alike as two peas in a pod and go together just like peas and carrots--just like Forrest and Jenny, except Raney was never flighty like that Jenny.After Edgerton did his Air Force duty, he went back to the University of North Carolina where he got his Masters in English. He taught at his own former high school where he was one of the favorite teachers there. He obtained his PhD in English at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Edgerton took a teaching position at Campbell University in Buies Creek, North Carolina, a Baptist School. Campbell University, the Baptist School without a sense of humor After watching Eudora Welty read one of her short stories Edgerton decided to become a writer as well as a teacher. After the publication of Raney Mr. Edgerton and Campbell University parted ways. Some Baptists just have NO sense of humor.So, if you are not a Baptist, or you are a Baptist with a sense of humor or any other thing you want to be because that's all right with Clyde and me, read this book. Read it aloud. Read it to someone you love. Give a copy to a friend. Make it your copy. You're not getting mine. For Anne and Bill Boston, from Dallas, not Shreveport, who had the good sense to move to Wilmington, NC, who know where Clyde Edgerton lives, and who just sent me a signed copy of Edgerton's latest, The Night Train: A Novel from Two Sisters Bookery. http://www.twosistersbookery.com/Two Sisters Bookery, 318 Nutt Street, Wilmington, NCWhy is this review being circulated again? Well, I'm trying to set up a meeting with Professor Edgerton at UNCW to get a submission to "On the Southern Literary Trail," and get that copy of "Solo" signed.
I spent the first 3/4 of this book wondering why on earth these two would ever have decided to get married. Why did this intelligent, liberal, educated man choose to marry into this family of racist, small-minded, Bible-beaters? Why did a sweet, naive girl like Raney choose to marry a worldly, arrogant snob like Charles? Had they ever spoken to each other, ever had a single conversation about values and beliefs, before walking down the aisle? The story is told from Raney's point of view, so we only get her side of the story, but she and her family were so unsympathetic for the first part of the book that I just couldn't understand what Charles ever saw in her. I didn't really care what happened to their marriage, because the marriage just seemed like it never should have happened in the first place. Literally the only thing they had in common was a love for music. Toward the end of the book, however, I could see that both characters were growing and changing and learning how to communicate with one another. This definitely added an element of realism, as they learned how to get along and love one another in spite of their (many) differences.There were a few moments that I thought were amusing, that made me smile a little, but the promise of side-splitting laughter that was made on the cover was never even close to being fulfilled. Mostly I was just perplexed, trying to imagine how in the world these two ever thought that marrying each other would be a good idea. Overall, it was just okay. A quick, easy read with some colorful characters and just enough entertainment value to salvage it from being a complete waste of time.
What do You think about Raney (1997)?
I zipped through this in an evening, the story of newlyweds in the pre-civil rights, post-WW2 south. The story is told from the perspective of Raney, the wife, who comes from a down-home, family-oriented, Free Will Baptist background in North Carolina. She marries Charles, who is more educated, whose parents are Episcopal, who is a reader and a thinker. He is also a librarian, and while he isn't described as one, I'd like to call him a music librarian. After all, they meet when he is collecting songs, and they perform regularly together.I love the focus on music, the religious debates, the thinking vs. believing discussions, and the assumptions vs. reality of a brand new marriage (that last one is probably something anyone who has been married can identify with). The frequent use of the n- word serves to illuminate the reality of smallmindedness in the south during that time, but wow sometimes it was rough to read it so frequently. Fair warning.
—Jenny (Reading Envy)
I was disappointed with this book. After reading Walking Across Egypt, I was excited to delve into another Edgerton book, but alas, this was not fullfilling enough. The main character is annoying with her naivety throughout the story. She listens to everyone's opinions, and TAKES everyone's opinions. She doesn't really think for herself and she's just all around dumb at times, especailly when confronting her husband about the things he does that I don't care for. And Charles, her husband, is another story. He's so pretentious and controlling, manipulating her because she doesn't know alot, or care to defend her own opinions (when she has them.) He's disgusting. Maybe its because I didn't understand it, but this book was a huge let down. I WAS happy to know that this was his first novel and that he didn't suffer some bad inspiration for this book. Anyway, if you want to read it, fine. But, everyone's entitled to their own opinion.
—Miss Starling
Raney is Southern fiction. You have to be Southern, I think, to enjoy it. If not, you're offended by the porn reference and maybe the drinking. But this is almost a coming-of-age story, and for women raised in the Bible belt of false religion, the message is a freeing one. Lighten up, people! God is not a God of rules (at least not for the people who follow Him ... a strange plot-twist, no?). Charles, the husband, is so rich, such a well-developed character with whom you can emphathize. Raney, too. She and her people just don't think, and this drives poor Charles crazy. It's fun to see newlyweds hack through the trivial issues that seem to morph into divorce proceedings. It's just dear and hilarious! Not only that. It's crafted in a way that pleases, with the hilarious and fitting ending typing up the whole thing into a perfect package. This was my third time to read this book. I read it first 20 years ago, and every several years I'm drawn to it again. So simple, so subtle ... I don't know what makes me laugh like I do. When I read it out loud to Husband it's not as funny as when the lines hit you between the eyes, ha!
—Lisa
