Rides of the Midway: A Novel [Paperback]

Lee Durkee (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 17, 2002

"With this eruptive debut novel, Durkee...has just kicked in the door of Southern literature."—Salon.com

Meet Mississippi teenager Noel Weatherspoon: ghost-seeing insomniac, endearing dopehead, wanna-be erotic photographer, and possible Baptist faith healer. Noel, who prefers The Exorcist to Ecclesiastes, must navigate a world of Bible-thumpers, born-again Christians, and a stepfather who bears an uncanny resemblance to Billy Graham. Darkly comic and lyrically moving, Rides of the Midway introduces a formidable new talent in contemporary fiction.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Not many people have the misfortune of being able to point to one pivotal, disastrous moment in their lives. It's all downhill for asthmatic 10-year-old Noel Weatherspoon after he scores an inside-the-park homer by slamming into catcher Ross Altman and knocking him out cold in Durkee's sharp and engaging first novel. Noel's stubbornness could have made him a hero on the field, but with Ross in a permanent coma, he instead comes out looking like the bad guy and is scarred for lifeAas a teenager he drinks, smokes, drugs and slums his way through Mississippi schools. The one thing that Noel can't shake is religion, specifically his Baptist upbringing, the disapproval of his strict Methodist cousins and the persistence of born-again friends. Moreover, Noel seems to have psychic powers, seen alternately as blessing and curse. His mother, Alise, goes pretty easy on him, especially because his stepfatherAwho bears an eerie resemblance to Billy GrahamAis the one who always catches him getting into trouble. Noel Sr. is presumed dead in Vietnam; the boy's last image of his father is of him boarding a perilous carnival ride, an apt metaphor for Noel's substance-induced highs and consequent lows. Noel's younger brother, Matt, is a hellion-in-waiting; conversely, their stepbrother, Ben, is a wise little angel who likes everyone and is loved in return. All of the characters are remarkably realized, their quirks and mannerisms so true that it's especially heartbreaking when tragedy strikes, as it inevitably must. Durkee's darkly humorous debut sorrowfully and sincerely portrays a boy's self-damnation. In the tradition of Anne Tyler, this promising first-timer has taken great care to resurrect smalltown living in the '70s and '80s without a hint of sentimentality. (Feb.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From The New Yorker

Barrelling into the catcher of an opposing Little League team at home plate, ten-year-old Noel Weatherspoon puts the other boy into a coma—an accident that sentences him to a tormented nineteen-seventies Mississippi adolescence. In this tender and hallucinatory first novel, episodes with the local police, high-school girls, and an abusive stepfather pass like dreams as Noel alternates between the comforting numbness of drugs and the terrifying clarity of his visions.
Copyright © 2005 The New Yorker

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Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company (April 17, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393322904
• ISBN-13: 978-0393322903
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #716,484 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A funny, great read, February 21, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Rides of the Midway: A Novel (Hardcover)

I really loved this book--it's kind of a ghost story, murder mystery, and bildungsroman all wrapped into one. It's refreshing to read a book by a Southern writer who doesn't sugar-coat the South with too much reverence and nostalgia; Durkee's portrait is realistic and unsentimental. In one passage, Noel, the book's narrator, says, "Okay, say some guy spends his whole life murdering people, like Hitler, where does he go after he dies?" "That's easy," Tim [Noel's friend and one of the few Jewish kids in town] replied. "Mississippi." Durkee renders his story with compassion and truth. It's a funny, smart, well-crafted novel.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Wild Ride, January 25, 2001

By 

Art Taylor - See all my reviews

This review is from: Rides of the Midway: A Novel (Hardcover)

Despite its title, Lee Durkee's first novel visits the State Fair (in this case the Great Mississippi State Fair) only once. But the book is ultimately suffused in and propelled along by the feelings and emotions perhaps suggested by the title: the spinning, speeding rides that leave you dizzy, disoriented and (fortunately for readers) deliriously giddy. The book is ultimately a coming-of-age story about a young Mississippi boy named Noel Weatherspoon, who's haunted by the ghost of his long-lost father (MIA in Vietnam), dealing with a fervently religious stepfather and coping with his own guilt about a young boy left in a coma after a baseball accident. Noel lusts for girls his own age and for older women -- the mother of a boyhood friend and later a married teacher at his college, with whom he has a brief but impactful affair. He dabbles in drugs and in both photography and pornography. And along the way, he tries to come to terms with both himself and the increasingly unpredictable world he lives in. As with a ride on the midway, the plot's twists seem both fun and frightening, harrowing and, at baser levels, humorous. And an almost carnivalesque atmosphere pervades throughout, as the novel twists, dips and careens through a variety of moods and styles, including gothicism, psychedelia and magical realism. But though the story at points doesn't hold together as well as it might (haven't we all at some time been afraid of the stability of that ride at the fair?), Durkee's novel is still generally a success. To keep the metaphor going, he's like a master carny himself, promising any and all takers an unforgettable ride -- and then delivering the goods.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a brilliant surprise of a story, June 1, 2001

By 

cynthia roth (Murphysboro, IL United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Rides of the Midway: A Novel (Hardcover)

Lee Durkee is a brilliant storyteller. I laughed with recognition at his hip, harried, 1970's mothers. I cried at the incredibly detailed, pitch-perfect tension Durkee reveals between blood brothers and ideas about prayer in this Mississippi town. Rides of the Midway transcends geography in its dreamy interludes, breadth of expression, and quality of language. I love how often the most reckless characters are also unexpectedly thoughtful. Noel Weatherspoon is drawn with the red-achey squint of every charming pothead, and moral burdens ascribed more often to soldiers than to kids. The beauty of this book is in the depth of attention paid to the smallest moments of joy and danger in the lives of children and their parents, the moments in which peace of mind vanishes and revelation comes too fast, or just soon enough to offer up a welcome surprise.