Staff Pick
Victor Lodato's latest novel is excellent and almost impossible to put down. Edgar is 8 years old, quite precocious, and an albino. Lucy, Edgar's mother, is kind of a mess; or rather, definitely a mess. At first Edgar and Lucy is seemingly a straight-up family drama, but Victor Lodato throws a giant monkey wrench into his story. Crisis can be a great way to expose a character's faults and weaknesses, and Lodato expertly mines his story for every nuance his characters unwillingly give up. Exploring themes of both bad and good parenting; fear and anger; loss in all its many incarnations; blood family and the people who are sometimes much closer than family; the bullying children endure, and the fallout from that bullying; and the idea of home, comforting and safe. Lodato's style is absolutely gripping, and his story will completely suck you in. The long six-year wait after Lodato's equally fantastic Mathilda Savitch is finally over! Recommended By Dianah H., Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
"I tore through the luminous pages of
Edgar and Lucy as if possessed What this book has to say about love and truth will stay with me for a very, very long time."
— Sophie McManus, author of
The Unfortunates
Edgar and Lucy is a page-turning literary masterpiece a stunning examination of family love and betrayal.
Eight-year-old Edgar Fini remembers nothing of the accident people still whisper about. He only knows that his father is gone, his mother has a limp, and his grandmother believes in ghosts. When Edgar meets a man with his own tragic story, the boy begins a journey into a secret wilderness where nothing is clear not even the line between the living and the dead. In order to save her son, Lucy has no choice but to confront the demons of her past.
Profound, shocking, and beautiful, Edgar and Lucy is a thrilling adventure and the unlikeliest of love stories.
Review
"Victor Lodato may be our bard of the sadness, humor, and confusion
of loss. He senses the absurdities and elation of mourning and childhood
with a capacious precision that brings to mind J.D. Salinger, Lorrie Moore, Karen Russell, even James Joyce. Edgar and Lucy will make you feel things you haven't felt in ages." Daniel Torday, author of The Last Flight of Poxl West
Review
"A quirky coming-of-age novel that deepens into something dark and strange without losing its heart or its sense of wonder." Tom Perrotta, bestselling author of The Leftovers
Review
"I love this book. Profoundly spiritual and hilariously
specific...an unusual and intimate epic that manages to capture the
wonder and terror of both child and parenthood with an uncanny clarity." Lena Dunham, bestselling author of Not That Kind of Girl
Review
"This tale gradually exerts a fiendish grip on the reader" Helen Simonson, author of Major Pettigrew's Last Stand
About the Author
Victor Lodato is a playwright and the author of the novel Mathilda Savitch, winner of the PEN Center USA Award for fiction. His stories and essays have appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Granta, and Best American Short Stories. He is the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. Victor was born and raised in New Jersey and currently divides his time between Ashland, Oregon, and Tucson, Arizona.