If you haven't heard of or read any Clyde Edgerton books yet, that is (as one of Edgerton's characters might say) a right shame. This North Carolina author still hasn't claimed enough of an audience, perhaps because his understated commentary on the South can't be neatly categorized.
While his previous novel, The Bible Salesman, contained no discussion of racial issues, Edgerton's new book, The Night Train, confronts them--well, not head on; that wouldn't be Edgerton's style--through music. Two teenagers, white Dwayne Hallston and black Larry Nolan (you'll learn the rest of his name in the book, and it's a doozy), want to be performers. The fact that they live on opposite sides of a town called Starke shows how unself-conscious the author is about litt-rah-choor. He's willing to play it up; if the device fits, he uses it.
But Edgerton knows what he's up to. If a name or three seems evidence of a huge artistic wink, that's because, behind the scenes, the author is deftly pulling strings so that the boys' musical ambitions will wind up taking a stage that no one in East or West Starke ever dreamed of: an integrated one. As the scenes with family, at work and even including a little red dancing hen unspool, readers may believe they're reading a slight, sweet, slice of life--until the final pages, when this Train pulls neatly into its station, right on time, without missing a beat. --Bethanne Patrick, editor, Shelf Awareness