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More copies of this ISBN:This title in other formats:The Bible Salesmanby Clyde Edgerton
Synopses & ReviewsPublisher Comments:Preston Clearwater has been a criminal since stealing two chain saws and 1600 pairs of aviator sunglasses from the Army during the Second World War. Back on the road in post-war North Carolina, a member of a car-theft ring, he picks up hitch-hiking Henry Dampier, an innocent nineteen-year-old Bible salesman. Clearwater immediately recognizes Henry as just the associate he needs--one who will believe Clearwater is working as an F.B.I. spy; one who will drive the cars Clearwater steals as Clearwater follows along in another car at a safe distance. Henry joyfully sees a chance to lead a dual life as Bible salesman and a G-man. During his hilarious and scary adventures we learn of Henry's fundamentalist youth, an upbringing that doesn't prepare him for his new life. As he falls in love and questions his religious training, Henry begins to see he's being used--that the fun and games are over, that he is on his own in a way he never imagined. Review:"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 nave 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." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.) Review: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... Washington Post Book Review (read the entire Washington Post review) Synopsis:Preston Clearwater has been a criminal since he began stealing from the Army during the Second World War. Back on the road in post-war North Carolina, he picks up hitchhiking Henry Dampier, and immediately recognizes Henry as just the associate he needs to help Clearwater's car-theft ring.
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