The Sharpshooter Blues - Hardcover

Nordan, Lewis

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1565120833 ISBN 13: 9781565120839

Publisher: Algonquin Books, 1995

Synopsis

ALA Notable Book; Mississippi Arts and Letters Fiction Award. Lewis Nordan's remarkable third novel, THE SHARPSHOOTER BLUES, is in part a meditation on America's love affair with blue-steel barrels and soft-tip bullets, and in part a look at the violence and loss that ensue when the guns come out to play one day in a small town. Just as his award-winning WOF WHISTLE illuminated the complexity of racism, Nordan's new novel shines the brilliant flash of gunfire on love--between fathers and sons, between husbands and wives, between gay lovers, and between friends. At its heart is Hydro Raney, a boy who's never grown up, a boy who wouldn't hurt a soul. In THE SHARPSHOOTER BLUES, Nordan once again makes us laugh; then our helpless laughter turns first into weeping and then into wonder. "A comedy at least half as divine--and dark--as Dante's own . . . a flat-out tour de force."--Lee K. Abbott, Miami Herald; "This is not just a good book, this is a marvelous book."-The Village Voice.

About this title

About the Author:

Lewis Nordan was a professor of creative writing at the University of Pittsburgh for many years and the author of seven books of fiction and a memoir. His awards include three American Library Association Notable Book citations, the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Award for fiction, the Mississippi Authors Award for fiction, and the Southern Book Critics Award for fiction. He died in 2012.

From Publishers Weekly:

The South is a country like no other, as we have learned from Faulkner and Welty and O'Connor, and Nordan (Wolf Whistle) is one of the best contemporary writers to portray its people. He does so with tenderness and compassion, in prose that rises and falls like plangent music. Here, as usual, the characters are colorful, eccentric and sometimes bizarre, but they are at home in their setting?again the fictional Mississippi delta town of Arrow Catcher?and Nordan makes them real. Again he uses humor to mask his characters' "inexpressible grief and... foreknowledge of lifelong pain." Among those who endure this pain are Mr. Raney, a fisherman who shares his shack with his hydrocephalic, 20-year-old son, Hydro; and 10-year-old Louis McNaughton, who watches Hydro shoot the "two lovely children" (read vicious killers) who try to rob Mr. William Tell's grocery store. Mr. Raney, a widower, treats his handicapped son with gentle love; he calls him "Peaches" and sings blues as lullabies. Louis's parents, on the other hand, have damaged their children with selfish and irresponsible behavior. In this society, most people own firearms, and a gunslinger, such as "tiny as a midget" Morgan, the titular sharpshooter, enjoys respect; indeed, lovable Mr. Raney regularly aims his pistol at the refrigerator ("there was nothing as satisfying as shooting a gun inside a house"). Nordan makes us understand that these are good people who put great store in loyalty, courtesy and friendship, though violence is often an accidental byplay. While he evokes his special world with skill, however, he sometimes asks too much of his readers' credulity. The semimystical state in which characters undergo magical metamorphoses or see visions, and the inappropriate conversation in the face of death (which Nordan intends as gallant but which comes across as grotesque), sometimes veer toward caricature. Yet Nordan's take on the South?both quaint and fiercely honest?is a healing view, embracing the power of love to earn redemption. Author tour.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Algonquin Books
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 1565120833
• ISBN 13: 9781565120839
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 291