The Bible Salesman

Thanks, you just reminded me about this book. I purchased it as my Christmas gift to myself. When it came several weeks before Christmas, I put it away to save for Christmas. Here it is two weeks past and I had forgotten about the book. I know it will be just great. I have read almost all of Clyde Edgerton's books and they are books to be enjoyed over and over again. Of course he is one of my favorite NC writers, and I have had the pleasure of attending book readings on two occasions where he was the guest of honor.

Reviewed by Sandie Kirkland for RebeccasReads (12/08) Henry Dampier can't believe his luck. Here he was, meandering along selling Bibles in the rural South, and he meets an honest-to-God FBI man. More astonishing, this FBI agent, Preston Clearwater, wants Henry to work with him, taking down a stolen car ring. All Henry has to do is drive the stolen cars from one point to the next, do everything Clearwater asks without question, and never tell anyone what he is doing. Henry can't believe his luck. As the book progresses, Edgerton fills in Henry's prior life. His father was killed when Henry was a baby, and his mother left him and his sister with relatives. He grew up surrounded with family: Aunt Dorie, Uncle Jack, Uncle Samuel, his cousin Carson and sister Catherine. Family and religion shaped his life. As he moves around the South, Henry meets new people. Marleen is his first serious love, and the Finley sisters welcome him into their home. But, all is not well. In his new life with Clearwater, Henry starts to realize all is not quite right. There are strange men who seem unlikely to work for the government, night trips that can't be mentioned, and soon the work progresses from taking cars to taking safes from houses. Along the way, Henry keeps his sweetness but starts to question and put hints together. The book builds to a revelation of murder and resolution. Edgerton is a master at portraying Southern life. This book illustrates life in the South in the time period from the 1930's to the late 1950's, that last generation before television, electricity and cars became commonplace. Family and religion made up a large part of most people's lives. People lived close to the land, growing gardens, hunting and fishing. Moral codes were rigorous and enforcement was a community affair, where your neighbor was as likely to correct a child as the parents. The other strength of the book is character development. If the reader is from the South, they immediately recognize the characters, as they grew up with people who were just like the ones Edgerton describes. The description of food, entertainment, religious beliefs and attitudes towards life are familiar, and the book feels like coming home and slipping on comfortable clothes. This book is recommended for those looking for reading entertainment and a fond look back to another time.

I am currently reading this book, and I don't care where it leads me. I'm totally beguiled. Some literary works are so beautiful, it's almost impossible to put your finger on why you've fallen in love with them. I just read "Netherland," by Joseph O'Neill, and it had a similar effect on me. Reading "The Bible Salesman" is like looking into a glass lake and now and then catching a thrashing drama just beneath the surface. You are so mesmerized by the charm of the scene that you can't look away even when you catch sight of dark and the violent events that appear suddenly, shocking you. I look forward to reading more by this author.

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

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.