FICTION · LARGE TYPE
Clyde Edgerton
Also known as: CLYDE EDGERTON
American author and Creative Writing professor
I haul things.
— from In Memory of Junior, 1992
Most acclaimed
The Best American Short Stories 1997
Donald Edwin Westlake (July 12, 1933 – December 31, 2008) was an American writer with more than one hundred novels and non-fiction books to his credit. He specialized in crime fiction, especially comic capers, with an occasional foray into science fiction and other genres. Westlake created two professional criminal characters who each starred in a long-running series: the relentless, hardboiled Parker (published under the pen name Richard Stark), and John Dortmunder, who featured in a more humorous series. Westlake was a three-time Edgar Award winner and, alongside Joe Gores and William L. DeAndrea, was one of few writers to win Edgars in three different categories (1968, Best Novel, God Save the Mark; 1990, Best Short Story, "Too Many Crooks"; 1991, Best Motion Picture Screenplay, The Grifters). In 1993, the Mystery Writers of America named Westlake a Grand Master, the highest honor bestowed by the society.
Night train
1992
Detective Mike Hoolihan has seen it all. A fifteen-year veteran of the force, she's gone from walking a beat, to robbery, to homicide. But one case - this case - has gotten under her skin. When Jennifer Rockwell, darling of the community and daughter of a respected career cop - now top brass - takes her own life, no one is prepared to believe it. Especially her father, Colonel Tom. Homicide Detective Mike Hoolihan, longtime colleague and friend of Colonel Tom, is ready to "put the case down." Suicide. Closed. Until Colonel Tom asks her to do the one thing any grieving father would ask: take a second look. Not since his celebrated novel Money has Amis turned his focus on America to such remarkable effect. Fusing brilliant wordplay with all the elements of a classic whodunit, Amis exposes a world where surfaces are suspect (no matter how perfect), where paranoia is justified (no matter how pervasive), and where power and pride are brought low by the hidden recesses of our humanity.
In Memory of Junior
1992
Go by the Baptist Cemetery in Summerlin any Sunday after church and you'll see all kinds of families out there weeding and sweeping the family plots. There's always lots to do - dumping out the potted poinsettias and dusting off the plastic peonies, making sure the kids know everybody dead and how they are kin to everybody living. To most folks, which cemetery, which family plot, which tombstone and what's carved on it are of consequence. And the older you are, the more so. In the Bales-McCord family, two old people are at the point of contemplating their final resting places - Glenn and Laura Bales. Everybody is wondering which one will go first. A third old person looking death in the eye is Uncle Grove McCord, hell-raising, bootlegging, bush pilot, black sheep brother of Glenn Bales's first wife. Grove left Summerlin years ago and has buried several wives. He's got a good healthy one now out in Arkansas. But he pines for Summerlin where he was raised and is making his own private arrangements to be buried there. "Hell," he says, "I can't be buried beside all my wives." Clyde Edgerton fans won't be surprised that the characters in his funny new novel end up with too many graves and too few tombstones. It all happens within the space of just a couple of weeks and it's told by everybody involved, from Buster Douglas, the Truck Freight Limited driver who delivers Uncle Grove's tombstone to Wilma and Harold Fuller, Visitors-to-the-Sick. Join them as they gather in Summerlin to attend to the business of passing on - and passing down. As Uncle Grove points out, "You're history longer than you are fact."