In Memory of Junior

January 1, 1992
Edgerton ( Killer Diller ) again expertly conducts a chorus of ornery individuals in this prime example of entertaining, down-home Southern fiction. With considerable panache and humor, he assumes the first-person voices of the busybodies, war vets, good old boys and sole misunderstood teen ``hippie'' of Summerlin, N.C. These forthright folks are concerned--more pragmatically than emotionally--with the impending demise of waning, elderly Glenn Bales and his second wife, Laura. Glenn and Laura each have children from previous marriages. If Glenn dies first, his two sons lose their right to the family property and Laura's daughter becomes the legal heir; if Laura is the first to go, vice versa. Naturally, Summerlin's know-it-all residents take sides in the morbid endurance contest and can't resist proffering biased, highly amusing remarks on family loyalty, compromise, morality and death. Some 20 major and minor characters have their say, yet through some miracle of narrative the tale remains consistently uncluttered. Skilled storyteller Edgerton performs an enviable balancing act that demonstrates mastery of dialogue, irony and characterization. Author tour.

September 1, 1992
The Bales-McCord family of North Carolina are distantly related to the Copeland family of Edgerton's The Floatplane Notebooks ( LJ 10/1/88). Their story is similar, too, with strained relationships and cemetery gatherings. The humor here is wry and more restrained than in Walking Across Egypt ( LJ 3/15/87), the tone more somber. Faison and Tate were deserted by their mother when Tate was just a baby, and father Glenn remarried and produced Faye. Now Faye's mother and Glenn hover near death, and their offspring worry about who will die first and who will inherit the family acreage. Meanwhile, Uncle Grove (brother to Glenn's first wife) is heading home to die, and Faison and his ex-wife are fighting over what goes on her son Junior's gravestone. Complicated? Yes, and often morbid, but Edgerton is the new master of Southern family tales.-- Ann H. Fisher, Radford P.L., Va.

Copyright 1992 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.