Review by Booklist Review
With his third novel-- following Raney [BKL F 1 85] and Walking across Egypt [BKL Mr 15 87]-- Clyde Edgerton continues the tradition of using country-family humor to tell stories about serious issues. In this case the issue is the Vietnam War, which interferes with the lives and traditions of the Copeland family. Edgerton's characterizations rely on the family roles the characters play to define them. But they are no less affecting for it-- from the thoughtful, sensitive sister-in-law, to the semisadistic prankster brother who ends up a severely disabled vet, to the slightly eccentric, sentimental father whose floatplane log becomes a record of family lore. Each lends a unique point of view and evokes a unique brand of sympathy. DGR.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
In his third novel (after Raney and Walking Through Egypt ), Edgerton again demonstrates his ability to reveal character through sharply etched dialogue and wildly hilarious circumstance. He also achieves a deeper resonance in this story of the blue-collar Copeland family of North Carolina. The voices of various narrators produce a composite family portrait that takes the Copelands from the placid summer of 1956 to the Vietnam War years of the '60s. In Edgerton's deceptively simple prose, we learn about such traditions as grave-cleaning day, the annual hunting trip to Florida and Albert Thatcher's ongoing, seemingly doomed efforts to construct a floatplane with aluminum pontoons. Another narrative voicethat of the wisteria vine that overruns the graveyardalso imparts family secrets; this, however, is a labored device that hampers credibility. In all other respects, the novel is absorbing as the voices obliquely reveal family relationships, personality clashes, sibling rivalry and small-town social mores. But the tale becomes gripping and wrenchingly vivid when Meredith Copeland and his cousin Mark Oakley enlist in the military and are sent to Southeast Asia. Here, too, is when the reader discovers that Edgerton is not a predictable writer; he turns our expectations head over heels, showing how circumstances can change character in surprising ways. This is a mature novel in which Edgerton's subtle mastery of his craft is made increasingly clear. BOMC featured selection; QPBC alternate. (September) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
The connecting frame of this episodic family novel is an ongoing effort by the patriarch, Albert Copeland, to build an amphibious airplane--the ``floatplane'' of the title. Protocol requires that a notebook of construction details and flight tests be kept, and although the plane seems destined never to take wing, the notebooks become a family document where events about the two boys, Thatcher and Meredith, their friends, wives, siblings, and neighbors are recorded. Many of the episodes are very amusing--especially those involving Meredith and his pal Mark, when they are rascally young boys who drop everything from kittens to tombstones down the family well. The story has some moving moments when the boys go off to the Vietnam War, and a gothic note is struck by a talking wisteria vine that sees the ancestors during their yearly appearances in the family graveyard at the blue moon. But this rambling story is for those who like fiction akin to a chat on the back porch and who don't mind narrators like Norman Dietz, Sally Darling, and the author himself, whose exaggerated reading styles sound like caricatures of good old boys and cartoons of Southern belles. For popular collections only.-- Sharon Cumberland, Graduate Ctr., CUNY (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Another folksy and warmhearted novel about the lower-middle class in the almost-modern South, by the author of Raney (1984) and Walking A cross Egypt (1987). But here Edgerton imposes a demanding literary technique--different voices speaking in turn (á la As I Lay Dying)--on an increasingly mawkish and monotonous narrative. What everyone's talking about is the Copeland family, a close-knit and curious bunch of southerners currently presided over by Albert, whose wartime experience as a bridge-building frogman explains his obsession with ""friction reduction"" and ""natural suspension""--his all-purpose explanations for just about anything. Since the mid-50's, he's puttered around with a floatplane--a silly flying contraption that's supposed to take off from a body of water. Over the years, members of his family tell us about other comic adventures as well, most centering on Albert's son, Meredith, a mischievous boy with an ""ever-present twinkle in his eye""--as his adoring sister-in-law Bliss puts it. Also attesting to Meredith's antic behavior are his boorish brother, Thatcher, and his fatherless cousin, Mark, Meredith's reluctant co-conspirator. They both record priceless chapters in Copeland family lore, hilarious set-pieces that include the time Meredith fell through the kitchen floor and into an old well underneath, and the time his interracial basketball game was postponed on account of coal dust. Family rituals--the annual grave-cleanings and the yearly hunting trips to Florida--provide further evidence of their appealing lunacy. But the graveyard's wisteria vine--which also gets to speak!--alludes to a darker history, full of tragic deaths. Edgerton's tone downshifts further when he brings Mark and Meredith into the Vietnam era and a war that renders the latter a cripple. Hope springs eternal, though, in the literally uplifting ending--a joyous moment when one of Mr. Copeland's cockamamie notions proves triumphant. Edgerton's historical ambitions overwhelm his more modest sense of humor. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Review by Library Journal Review
Review by Kirkus Book Review
