Lightning Song [Paperback]

Lewis Nordan (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 1998

Leroy Dearman is twelve, and he lives on a llama farm in Mississippi. Life is perfect. It's true that his grandfather just died in the attic and that wild dogs kill a baby llama now and then, and it's true that one little sister curses him and the other one wets her pants. But up to the day Uncle Harris moves in, life looks like it's right out of a Walt Disney movie. No wonder the llamas greet each morning with a song. Uncle Harris arrives in a sports car, full of funny stories and new ideas. He manages to persuade Leroy's straitlaced parents to join him for cocktails in the evening. He sets up a pretty grand bachelor pad in the Dearman attic, with a telephone, a TV set, and a stack of Playboy magazines. He is, you might say, Romance itself. Once Uncle Harris moves in, life on the llama farm takes on an entirely different flavor. Leroy discovers those magazines. Electricity fills the Dearman house. Equilibrium tilts, conversation trails off, the atmospheric pressure twists--and lightning strikes. Leroy starts seeing things he's never seen before, like the very gifted baton-twirling teacher, and his world changes forever. Not since PORTNOY'S COMPLAINT has a novel looked so directly, hilariously, and bittersweetly at the heartbreak of puberty.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Every time lightning strikes in Lewis Nordan's novel, strange things happen. Lightning strikes, and an old man dies; lightning strikes again and he comes back to life; love affairs begin and end amid the perilous crackle of electrical storms. Young Leroy Dearman inhabits a flat, Mississippi landscape punctuated by singing llamas, wild dogs, and his own eccentric family members: a grandfather who drinks poison, a mother obsessed with the kidnapped Italian politician Aldo Moro, an uncle who seduces his mother, and a father infatuated with an Indian maiden. Leroy himself is tortured by erotic fantasies involving a buxom high school baton twirler. His torment is hardly eased when he discovers his uncle's cache of skin magazines. When the baton-twirling Circe finally makes Leroy's dreams come true lightning strikes.

All of this could become a cartoon version of rural Southern life in the hands of a less accomplished writer. But Lewis Nordan hits all the right notes in Lightning Song, delving beneath surface eccentricity to expose the loneliness, the confusion, and the longing for love that dwell in the heart of every character. Funny and sad, its atmosphere as emotionally charged as the air just before a thunderstorm, Lightning Song is a rare and wonderful read. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Library Journal

Things have changed since 12-year-old Leroy brought his grandfather Old Pappy back to life: Uncle Harris moved in with his soft-core porno magazines, the New People moved in across the meadow, eight-year-old sister Laurie killed a wild dog, little Molly has begun wetting her pants, father Swami Don has contemplated an affair with a Creek woman, mother Elsie has started drinking, and Leroy himself has had sex with an off-kilter baton-twirler. Just as family life hits rock bottom, one stormy night Elsie jumps into bed with a startled Harris, who is having phone sex, and Leroy is struck by lightning. As his bodily wounds heal, so do the psychic wounds within the family, and Don, justifying his nickname, convinces them that beauty and romance are personal decisions for those who recognize the blessings around them. Nordan (Sugar Among the Freaks, LJ 4/1/96) handles this coming-of-age novel with grace, charm, and humor; its "American-ness" may remind readers of the work of Wallace Stegner. Recommended for all collections.?Harold Augenbraum, Mercantile Lib. of New York
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 273 pages
• Publisher: Algonquin Books (September 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1565122208
• ISBN-13: 978-1565122208
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,024,911 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I'm still laughing, March 17, 2000

By 

S. A. Loibner II "Loibner" (Little Rock, Arkansas United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Lightning Song (Paperback)

This was the first Lewis Nordan novel I read, and it was the perfect way to start. This book is funny--very, very funny.

If you are a fan of magic realism--Salman Rushdie, Gabriel Garcia Marquez--you have to give this novel a try; it is magic realism with a southern twist. Lightning continues to strike the house, becoming a living, breathing character in the novel. Magazines glow. A girl with fins twirls a baton with amazing talent.

About half way through this book, you will be back online looking for other Lewis Nordan novels, so you won't have to wait a second between books.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Absolutely hilarious .... great story, March 26, 2003

By 

Mark Stephen Warren (Huntsville, Alabama USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Lightning Song (Paperback)

Excellent reading. Touches the southern thing well, creates a great story line, and well worth the read. I hope to read other books by Nordan.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Haunting and beautiful, July 13, 2000

By 

Jussi Bjorling - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lightning Song (Paperback)

The plot of this book is a minimalist coming-of-age story. The novel's great strength lies in the strength of the writing: Nordan can make a trip to the store sound Homeric. The individual episodes vary in quality, but at Nordan's finest he writes as movingly as anyone alive.