The Bible Salesman: A Novel (Hardcover)

by Clyde Edgerton (Author)
Key Phrases: finger mullet, wagon path, cabin camp, Uncle Jack, Aunt Dorie, Miss Sarah (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
In this rollicking, rambling road novel of the post-WWII South, Preston Clearwater, a dead ringer for Clark Gable, steals cars and passes himself off as an undercover FBI agent. His mark is naïve 20-year-old Bible salesman Henry Dampier, whom Preston convinces to drive the cars to various paint shops (telling Henry that they have infiltrated a car-theft ring), while Preston follows in his own legally registered Chrysler. Preston undertakes more audacious forms of crime, while earnest Henry has a reunion with his fundamentalist family, listens to his cousin's scheme to market a new ad gimmick (called the bumper sticker), falls in love with roadside fruit-stand proprietor Marlene Greene and even manages to sell a few Bibles along the way. The hitch is his involvement with Preston: Henry will have to get wise to preserve all he has gained. Too many flashbacks to Henry's Baptist roots slow him down on the way to the novel's suspenseful climax and moving epilogue, but the result is one of the better takes on Southern Bible salesman buddy stories since Moses Pray and Addie Pray of Paper Moon. (Aug.)
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From The Washington Post
From The Washington Post's Book World/washingtonpost.com Since the publication of his first novel, Raney, in 1985, Clyde Edgerton has become as much a staple of Southern literature as sweet tea is to any meal south of the Mason-Dixon. He continues carving out this geographical niche with his new story about Henry Dampier, a 20-year-old Bible salesman and all-around naif who teams up with a car thief named Preston Clearwater. Preston, who has picked up Henry at the side of the road, convinces the young man that he works for the FBI and is part of an elaborate investigation that involves pretending he's stealing cars. Impressed, Henry agrees to help. The ensuing road trip through the Carolinas and Georgia in 1950 highlights Edgerton's skill with the comic set-piece, as when a potential Bible sale turns into a gothic burial of a beloved pet, or when, in one of the novel's many flashbacks, a lady with a house full of cats named after biblical figures throws her voice, giving the illusion that her felines are talking. My favorite scene is when Henry asks two elderly sisters for a ride, and the oldest, Miss Sarah -- a 91-year-old stroke victim unable to read the gas gauge -- insists on driving. In true comedic form, no one denies her the opportunity. The level of disbelief we're asked to suspend is sometimes overwhelming, but it's a credit to Edgerton's graceful touch that we're usually willing to play along. Edgerton uses a free-floating point-of-view that alternates frequently among characters, sometimes from paragraph to paragraph, as well as a free-floating plot that isn't propelled forward by the traditional engine of conflict. The closest we get is Henry's ongoing struggle with contradictions he finds in the Bible, contradictions he uses to justify giving in to his urges, whether for whiskey or sex. Although the novel's flashbacks provide colorful anecdotes about Henry's past, they often feel disconnected from the main story. They are, however, awfully good yarns. In this regard, Edgerton's novel is reminiscent not so much of Faulkner or Flannery O'Connor as of Charles Dickens's The Pickwick Papers, which is far more memorable for its character sketches than for its plot. In the same way, there are immense pleasures in the tales patched together in The Bible Salesman -- tales that could have been spun on the front porch of a late summer North Carolina night.
Copyright 2008, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Little, Brown and Company; 1 edition (August 11, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 031611751X
• ISBN-13: 978-0316117517
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #246,644 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A coming-of-age story in mid-century rural South, August 10, 2008

By	Roy E. Perry "amateur philosopher" (Nolensville, Tennessee) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Clyde Edgerton, "a Southern tale-spinning master" (Rocky Mountain News) has put his finger on the pulse of the mid-20th century rural South, where religion and sex revolve madly around each other--where hallelujahs and hucksterism, hosannas and hormones, duel in antiphonal counterpoint.

Henry Dampier, 20, having found Jesus at the Antioch Missionary Baptist Church, is on a mission to spread the Word of God to the fundamentalist denizens of the Bible Belt.

Trouble is, Henry, now reading the Bible for himself for the first time, discovers what he perceives to be troubling contradictions in Holy Writ. For example, Genesis, chapter 1, portrays God's creation of animals, then people; Genesis, chapter 2, portrays the order as people, then animals. Henry is confused.

Our hitchhiking Bible salesman is picked up by Preston Clearwater, who bills himself as an undercover agent for the FBI. He convinces Henry to assist him in stealing cars from a car-theft ring, which, hye assures Henry, is destined for a government sting. Clearwater has found his mark, a naive, gullible innocent who soon finds himself in way over his head.

Henry's innocence is put to the test when he meets nubile Marleen Green, who sells fruits and vegetables at a roadside stand. Henry's infatuation complicates his ambition to become a G-man like Clearwater.

Edgerton's narrative wanders all over the map, with numerous flashbacks describing Henry's family relationships. The plot finally returns to the young man's conflicted situation--to a denouement that may end in violence or the consummation of love.

About the author: Clyde Edgerton is a professor of creative writing at the University of North Carolina-Wilmington. He is the author of seven best-sellers, including Raney, Walking Across Egypt, and Where Trouble Sleeps. Five of his novels have been New York Times Notable Books. A musician and song-writer, he lives with his wife, Kristina, in Wilmington, North Carolina.

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars ROLLICKING, RIOTOUS, AND WONDERFUL, September 7, 2008

By	Gail Cooke (TX, USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 10 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)

There are a handful of authors who might be rightly described as national treasures. If I were to compile such a list Clyde Edgerton's name would be there in bold and underlined. He is a generous, guileless, if you will, writer, completely without artifice. His prose flows freely, his words are well chosen. Reading Edgerton is both relaxing and absorbing, very much like listening to a tale told by a julep oiled spellbinder on a lazy summer afternoon. You're captivated by his words, the verbal pictures he paints, and lean forward to catch every inflection.

Edgerton has been dubbed a regional writer, not so, although his settings are often the South. His understanding of the frailties of human nature spans state lines. Edgerton's characters are frequently quite eccentric even in today's ever surprising citizenry, yet he treats them with affection and respect. These imagined people can be both laugh out loud funny and endearing. Who but this author would introduce an older woman who lives with a house full of talking cats? (She throws her voice so that the biblically named felines seem to speak even when company hasn't come). Or, when someone has gone to his heavenly rest, one of the mourners approaches the casket, looks at the departed and says, "I like that red tie. It gives him a little color in his complexion." Then adds, "They do get pale at a time like this." Vintage Edgerton.

Twenty-year-old Henry Dampier has grown up in the postwar South tended to by Bible believing Aunt Dorie and, for a while, by fun loving Uncle Steve. He is inexperienced in the ways of the world or of women and a graduate of Bible- selling school. Good Book stocked valise in hand he starts out, hitchhiking on a road near Cressler, North Carolina.

As luck or fate would have it along comes Preston Clearwater, a charismatic, glib World War II veteran who has risen from swiping aviator sunglasses to stealing cars. What Preston needs is someone to do drive the stolen cars to their destination while he safely follows along behind. Henry is naive enough to initially believe that Preston is an FBI agent involved in a complex plot to capture the car thieves,. Further, he feels fortunate that Preston has had the insight to recognize Henry's latent talents and ask him to be part of the operation.

All goes along smoothly as Henry earns more money than Bibles would bring. He enjoys staying in motels for the first time where he can let the water fill the tub as much as he wishes. At home "Aunt Dorie let him use only just enough water to reach the back of the tub." Henry spends his evenings studying the Bible as Aunt Dorie would have wished, but is confused by some of the inconsistencies that he finds. However, such quandaries vanish when he finds the comely proprietress of a roadside fruit stand.

The Bible Salesman is exactly what we expect from Clyde Edgerton - rollicking, riotous, and simply wonderful.

- Gail Cooke

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars RICK "SHAQ" GOLDSTEIN SAYS: "FINDING ONE'S TRUE LOVE... SELLING BIBLES... AND STEALING CARS FOR THE FBI!", August 13, 2008

By	Rick Shaq Goldstein "Rick Shaq Goldstein" (Danville, Ca, USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

The story starts off on a dirt road in North Carolina in 1950, when a new Chrysler car driven by Preston Clearwater pulls over and picks up a young hitchhiker by the name of Henry Dampier, who is attempting to make a living selling bibles door-to-door. Preston see's some possible future potential that would surely benefit him... more than the boy himself... in the twenty-year-old Henry. The qualities that Preston holds in high personal regard are the "sensing" of gullibility and innocence, that's imbedded in the youthful bible salesman. Clearwater tells Henry that he is working undercover for the FBI, and he will pay Henry for each car he helps him drive away from car theft rings, which will eventually aid a larger FBI operation. Of course Henry can't tell anyone what he's doing, and even gives him a secret code word to tell the cops if he gets arrested.

Though Henry comes from a loving, nurtured, bible-based upbringing, he's not exactly free from sin... as his entire bible selling business is built around a scam. Henry writes a different religious organization every month, with a form letter asking for free bibles to hand out in his attempt to "support widows and orphans as directed by the Holy Scripture." When he receives the deliveries of bibles, he uses a razor to cut out the front pages of the new bibles that say: "COMPLIMENTARY COPY FROM THE CHICAGO BIBLE (ETC.) SOCIETY." Throughout the story the reader is informed via "flash-backs" to Henry's youth, which included his Father dying tragically young, and then his Mother abandoning Henry and his sister, and thus being raised by his Aunt and Uncle. Clearwater's background includes his entry into crime during World War II, where he and his current partner in crime "Blinky", met up in the army in France, where - "with creative paperwork and bold presentations of self - managed to steal two dump trucks, a forklift, four jeeps, seven chainsaws, and sixteen-hundred pairs of aviator sunglasses."

The entire story is told in the "sweet-innocent-southern-dialect" of the 1930's thru 1950's, which makes the entire story a smooth, velvety, innocuous, fable... despite the crime and misconduct that is woven throughout the heart of this coming of age story. The reader will share the innate sweet disposition of Henry as he comes face to face with the literal translations of the bible... along with his first true love... Marleen Green... who he meets for the first time at a fruit stand along the road. The reader will surely reflexively reminisce about how they felt back in the day, when they first felt the tingling of their first true love... as "HENRY FORGOT G-D, COUNTRY, BIBLES, AND FBI WORK"... "HE'D BEEN RUN OVER BY A MOVING MOUNTAIN."

This is a very pleasant, easy to read story, that will feel like a warm summer breeze... that passes through too quickly.