{"id":4727,"date":"2011-09-02T09:57:06","date_gmt":"2011-09-02T13:57:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/?p=4727"},"modified":"2011-09-02T09:57:06","modified_gmt":"2011-09-02T13:57:06","slug":"true-stories-through-the-prism-of-a-mighty-imagination","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/2011\/09\/true-stories-through-the-prism-of-a-mighty-imagination\/","title":{"rendered":"True stories, through the prism of a mighty imagination"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><em>by Vicky Dickson<\/em><\/strong><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/reader.100.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/reader.100.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"reader.100\" width=\"100\" height=\"100\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-4092\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/reader.100.jpg 100w, https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/reader.100-80x80.jpg 80w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 100px) 100vw, 100px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Those folks who wonder how a prolific writer like Clyde Edgerton keeps coming up with story ideas got some insight from his recent reading and book signing at the Barn at Fearrington, when he told the audience that his \u00e2\u20ac\u0153experience, my observation and my imagination go into the making of a fictional story.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d In other words, a lot of the stuff he writes about comes straight from his own life.<!--more--><br \/>\n<figure id=\"attachment_4728\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-4728\" style=\"width: 250px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/Reader090111.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/Reader090111.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"Reader090111\" width=\"250\" height=\"270\" class=\"size-full wp-image-4728\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/Reader090111.jpg 250w, https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/Reader090111-74x80.jpg 74w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 250px) 100vw, 250px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-4728\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Clyde Edgerton<\/figcaption><\/figure><br \/>\nLike the incident involving the dead chicken and the mustard-yellow shirt that inspired a poignant-but-also-hilarious chapter in <em>The Night Train<\/em>, Edgerton\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s latest novel. Another episode in that book springs from the writer\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s friend George\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s response to being told about an elderly, long-married couple who were apparently so happy with one another that the woman repeatedly used a term of endearment to refer to her spouse. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153George said, \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcYou know why she called him sweetheart? \u00e2\u20ac\u2122Cause she couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t remember his name.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Edgerton claims that his friend\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s insight and wit has led to George\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s showing up in the author\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s fiction in one way or another \u00e2\u20ac\u0153for so long that I started sending him a $2 check every month.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Many writers, myself included, know no shame,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Edgerton says, describing how the journaling he did while his mother was dying shaped his depiction of the care that a Southern white racist named Flash shows for his invalid mother in <em>The Night Train<\/em>. But maybe that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just a self-deprecating way of saying that he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a writer who\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not ashamed to acknowledge the bonds he shares with humanity\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s more imperfect creations. And maybe it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s that very lack of shame that enables Edgerton to create characters that are complicated and contradictory, and thus fully human. <\/p>\n<p>Edgerton\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s also a writer who\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s never been afraid to stray from his own point of view. His first novel, <em>Raney<\/em>, is told by a young, uneducated rural white woman, and the protagonist in <em>The Night Train<\/em> is a musically gifted black teenager named Larry Lime Beacon of Time Reckoning Breathe on Me Nolan. Perhaps the confidence to enter such different characters\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 heads comes in part from the fact that Edgerton was an only child raised mostly by his mother and two childless aunts \u00e2\u20ac\u201c the men in the family were \u00e2\u20ac\u0153kinda quiet,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he says. That experience no doubt shaped his keen ear for dialogue, and perhaps also his tendency not to shy away from dialect that some might construe as a put-down. <\/p>\n<p>Edgerton knows that he runs a risk in writing about old people, and about black people, in a manner that might be seen as crossing a line. But, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153For crying out loud, why can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t people be honest?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he asks. Especially when that honesty is motivated, as Edgerton\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s clearly is, by a hefty dose of both empathy and compassion. <\/p>\n<p>And humility. In a way, <em>The Night Train<\/em> is its author\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s chance to revisit his Southern boyhood, to look at some things he couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t really see when he was growing up. Like the time his father interrupted an interracial basketball game in his backyard to tell his son to ask the black boy who was playing with Edgerton to leave. Edgerton can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t remember the rest of that story, and understands now that his father may have been acting out of concern for his son\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s safety at a time when race relations were highly charged. But when the author incorporates the incident into <em>The Night Train<\/em>, he does so in a way that redeems his adolescent alter ego, in a very funny scene involving stowaways at a drive-in movie and the rich, racist owner of a dog-food company. <\/p>\n<p>A reader might think that every book an author writes makes writing the next one easier. A writer like Edgerton, then, with 11 books now under his belt, should be able to skate through the process \u00e2\u20ac\u201c but Edgerton describes the writing of each of his books as like \u00e2\u20ac\u0153being dropped in the middle of a swamp.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Luckily for us, the author\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s observational and imaginative skills, along with his superlative writing, provide him a flawless compass out of that swamp \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and readers of <em>The Night Train<\/em> with a highly entertaining and insightful window onto a particular Southern past.<\/p>\n<p>For author readings, see page 6<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by Vicky Dickson Those folks who wonder how a prolific writer like Clyde Edgerton keeps coming up with story ideas got some insight from his recent reading and book signing at the Barn at Fearrington, when he told the audience that his \u00e2\u20ac\u0153experience, my observation and my imagination go into the making of a fictional [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[319],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4727","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4727","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4727"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4727\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4729,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4727\/revisions\/4729"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}