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  • From: Bob Stepno <bstepno AT mindspring.com>
  • To: internetworkers AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [internetworkers] book suggestions?
  • Date: Sun, 3 Jul 2005 15:26:30 -0400

The fall before I moved to Chapel Hill I was lucky enough to catch Clyde Edgerton reading his stuff. I picked up "Raney" and "Walking Across Egypt" -- PLUS an accompanying tape by Clyde and the Tarwater Band playing old-timey songs (fauxsongs?) mentioned in the books -- and, I think, all written by him.

As I drove my rental truck down from New England, most of the way I sang along with "Quiche Woman in a Barbecue Town," which Cary (Containment Area for Relocated Yankees) should adopt as an anthem, if it hasn't already. Actually, Apex is where the Boston social worker in the song marries the mayor, but maybe Clyde'd change the song if Cary adopted it...

Approximate chorus, from memory:
"She's a quiche woman in a barbecue town...
With trucks and ticks and tobacco all around...
She was Vassar cum laude not many years ago...
The adjustment -- will be slow."

Damn... just realized I've lost track of that tape.

Anyhow, the books are funny (is "affectionate satire" a literary category?) and the characters are memorable enough to withstand seeing the movie version of Walking Across Egypt (with Mark Hamill as a trailer-dwellin' good ol' boy dogcatcher, Ellen Burstyn as a lonely granny, Judge Reinhold as her son, and Jonathan Taylor Thomas as a "troubled teen")

Now that I'm in Knoxville, I'm told I should read Suttree for local color...

cheers,

Bob
http://stepno.com





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