The Night Train

by Clyde Edgerton

Genres: Literary Fiction

Synopsis

The author of nine novels, Clyde Edgerton has built a reputation as a sage commentator on the American experience. In The Night Train, Edgerton weaves the ultimately uplifting tale of friends Dwayne, a James Brown-inspired crooner, and Larry, apprentice to a jazz musician. One black, one white, Dwayne and Larry face daunting challenges to their friendship—and futures—in 1960s America.
“… the work of a generous, restrained writer whose skill and craft allows small scenes to tell a larger, more profound story.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review

Release date: July 25, 2011

Publisher: Little, Brown and Company

Print pages: 224

Sample

“In The Night Train, Clyde Edgerton plunges his pitch-perfect language into the muck of attempting to describe music and its effects on us—and rises plain and clear as middle C…. This novel simply and powerfully shows how music creates inclusivity, brings out our inherent goodness, and helps us express love.”

—Stephanie Wilbur Ash, Minneapolis Star Tribune

“Edgerton takes on the complex psychological dance of blacks and whites living among each other in the last days of Jim Crow, weaving in a coming-of-age story, and making the whole book a meditation on the power of art…. The Night Train is a poignant depiction of a small community on the edge of irreversible change. Edgerton masterfully conveys the reality of everyday Southern life in the early ’60s…. So many novelists strive to capture such events on the page, the hours and times that shape the rest of someone’s life. Most of them fail. A novel containing moments like this is nothing less than a gift.”

—Kevin O’Kelly, Boston Globe

“Future historians can study Edgerton’s body of work for what he does best: capturing that elusive sense of place and people in the context of a twentieth-century era…. Edgerton’s genius is his ability to capture the nuances of small-town life…. By novel’s end, you know Starke, North Carolina, as well as you know your own hometown. Edgerton is also adept at capturing 1963. The Night Train is a time capsule containing the Greensboro sit-ins, The Rifleman TV show and the church bombings in Alabama…. Like Charles Dickens, Edgerton is a comic novelist of serious subjects who floats from character to character.”

—John McNally, Washington Post

“Masterful scenes, rendered with the author’s trademark poker face and keen ear for dialogue…. Sweeping change—peace marches, sit-ins, burnings, bombings, murders and riots—reverberates outside Starke’s sheltering boundaries, its effect limited to threats…. Luckily for these two boys, music—not violence—becomes the force that ultimately ushers in change…. Between the lines of this slender novel is the dark stamp on the bright daylight that makes sure we remember.”

—Gina Webb, Atlanta Journal-Constitution

“I read Clyde Edgerton’s new book with much delight and envy. He is at his subtle and clever best in The Night Train. Every page rings with the music of these characters’ voices, stories, and songs. The novel tackles 1963 with complete abandon. As always, Edgerton’s message is not there until you discover you agree with it. A beautiful novel.”

—Percival Everett, author of I Am Not Sidney Poitier

“The vivid ensemble cast in The Night Train is anchored by a pair of teenage boys…. Dwayne is white; Larry Lime is black. Over the course of the novel, each will experience a musical epiphany…. It will be the white boy who smuggles black music onto the local TV station’s hit show. Edgerton renders this portentous scene with the same skill and understatement he brings to every page.”

—Adam Mansbach, New York Times Book Review

“The Night Train is classic Edgerton, with crackling wit and lines that make you laugh out loud—but also classic is the great, generous heart at its center that leaves the reader filled with hope and compassion.”

—Jill McCorkle, author of Going Away Shoes

“Edgerton uses his story—by turns funny and powerfully moving—as a springboard to explore how blacks and whites interacted in the South as the civil rights movement gained strength. But Edgerton’s skills as a writer are what shine most brilliantly in The Night Train. His pitch-perfect ear for the cadences of the spoken word, his ability to evoke a distinctive sense of place and his graceful concision are unmatched. And his prose swings…. When it comes to contemporary fiction, Edgerton is the godfather of soul.”

—Doug Childers, Richmond Times-Dispatch

“I don’t know how Clyde Edgerton does what he does, how he makes me both happy and sad at the same time, but I’m glad he’s doing it. The Night Train features some of the finest chickenry in literature, including a rooster flung into an audience watching Hitchcock’s The Birds and a hen that dances on a pan. It also has some of the finest characters, especially Larry Lime, that Edgerton has ever dreamed up. But what I like best about this novel is its even-handed look at race relations in 1963 North Carolina, how he manages to make time timeless and place universal. Edgerton is funny and wise as ever and, somehow, keeps getting better.”

—Tom Franklin, author of Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter

“It is the wealth of well-understood characters that carries the reader through this engaging novel’s easily consumed pages.”

—Brad Hooper, Booklist (starred review)

“Edgerton… is profoundly skilled at taking on some of Southern literature’s most difficult themes… and addressing them with both respect and humor…. His affinity for simple sentences and clean chapter breaks gives this slim novel an almost fable-like power.”

—Kirkus Reviews

“Clyde Edgerton’s The Night Train is as gutsy as it is gentle. Gutsy because Edgerton tackles 1963 in the South…. Attempting to put words to paper to illuminate that fractious time takes courage and great skill. Edgerton has both. The book is gentle because of the tender approach Edgerton takes to his characters and the delicate way he offers up hope against what can seem insurmountable difficulties…. This book is not a heavy metal rocker, with action-packed tension on every page. Rather, it is more like a ballad, melodic and haunting, where the last verse can move the listener in a way only music can.”

—Anne Clinard Barnhill, Charlotte Observer

“The Night Train will sure enough get us clear of the shucks and the dread. It is a book to remind us all about the possibilities in life, no matter what side of the tracks we inhabit. Clyde Edgerton has an ear for the good stuff, and he has put music on the page for us to read.”

—M. Glenn Taylor, author of The Ballad of Trenchmouth Taggart

“Edgerton reveals a universe within a postage stamp of a place.”

—Rob Neufeld, Asheville Citizen-Times

“Readers of Edgerton’s previous novels will recognize the stories and pranks that characterize his humor. (The drive-in plot is priceless and poignant.) Beyond those moments, Edgerton has created a subtle portrait of a time not that long ago, when music helped break down racial barriers.”

—Cliff Bellamy, Durham Herald-Sun

“The Night Train is a gem…. You smile, you chuckle, and then at some indefinable point you realize what a masterpiece the book is…. This novel’s clear-eyed, unsentimental, understated dealing with race as seen through the eyes of a relatively naive child… evokes Harper Lee’s work without in any way imitating it.”

—Linda Carter Brinson, Greensboro News & Record

Friday, April 12, 1963

THE BOY LEANED in at the open front door of the bar. From inside, he looked like a dark stamp on the bright daylight behind him. A hemophiliac called the Bleeder sat in an armless chair on a small, low bandstand, an electric guitar strapped around his neck. He was alone and had been practicing his music. Come on in here, he said to the boy.

The back door of the bar was also open. Scents of pine and wisteria mixed with the smell of stale beer.

The name of the bar was the Frog. It sat near the train switching station just north of Starke, North Carolina—and was the only regular jazz spot within a hundred miles. The Bleeder played standard jazz tunes with four white men on Friday nights. The Jazz Group.

The boy advanced slowly past the pinball machine and a stack of chairs.

The Bleeder thought of that song “Roun’headed Boy”: Roun’headed boy, sneaking through the shed, / Thinking he clear of the shucks and the dread / That’s soon to fall like the thick night rain, / Drowning out the whistle of the northbound train.

He noticed the boy looking at the piano, a Fender Rhodes electric. Sit down on that piano stool, he said. You like music?

Yessuh.

What’s your name?

Larry Nolan.

How old are you?

Sixteen.

Nolan? thought the Bleeder. He remembered something about that family with the names. What’s your whole name? he asked.

Larry Lime Beacon of Time Reckoning Breathe on Me Nolan. He raised an eyebrow. They call me Larry Lime.

Good Lord. Who name you all that?

Aunt Marzie, my grandma. She name us all.

Can you play that Rhodes?

Rhodes?

That piano.

Larry Lime looked at the keys. A little bit, he said. A lady at church showing me some stuff.

Which church?

Liberty Day A.M.E.

You know scales?

Yessuh. Some.

Well, play me a B-flat scale on there, up two octaves and back. Left hand.

I ain’t tried a B-flat that much. I can do a C, G, or F.

Do one.

Larry Lime played the C-major scale up and back.

Okay. Now play me a tune.

Larry Lime played “What a Friend We Have in Jesus,” one-finger bass notes with the left hand, a straightforward arrangement. It was steady, no mistakes.

That’s good. I can get you doing that one like Professor Longhair. Then like some other people.

The Bleeder started in on something, tapping his heel and playing guitar, and on top of it he started singing “What a friend we have in Jesus.” Larry Lime had never heard the likes. It didn’t just move up and down; it moved out and back.

Can you do a C-minor scale? asked the Bleeder.

I can’t do no minors yet.

Let me just show you something. He lifted his guitar and strap from around his neck, placed the guitar on its stand, slid his chair over, and played an E blues scale on the piano. Can you play that? he said. It ain’t but se’m notes. E blues.

The Bleeder wore dark, loose clothes. Don’t worry about no fingering, he said. Just hit the notes. He smiled enough for Larry Lime to see his gold tooth.

Larry Lime played, got it right. He liked the slanted sound.

Look, now. Watch this. Just play around with those notes like this.

Larry Lime played it. It was more like a tune than a scale.

Okay, now you keep on doing that, right there in E, but play it in a little pattern sort of like this, like this here… and I’ll do a little… a little move with the guitar. He picked up the guitar, turned down the amp a notch, played along with Larry Lime.

Larry Lime’s eyes stayed on his hands, but his face reflected a crystal ball. They played the last few notes together.

I’m the Bleeder. That’s what they call me. You got a lot to learn. I’ll teach you some stuff.

The Bleeder had seen the boy and the man outside before—come to get the trash. Y’all got that pickup truck with plywood sides?

Yessuh.

Is he your daddy?

My cousin, but everybody call him Uncle Young.

Aunt Marzie name him too?

Yessuh.

What’s his whole name?

Young Prophet of Light and Material Witness to the Creation Trumpet Jones.

That’s a good one. What your daddy’s name?

Booker.

No long name, huh?

Nossuh, but my mama got o. . .