Flashbacks: Echoes of Past Issues
COURTESY OF NCLR
CLYDE EDGERTON,
COURTESY OF NCLR
One of the 2016 inductees into the North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame, long established and much awarded North Carolina writer and Durham native son Clyde Edgerton has authored ten novels, a memoir, dozens of short stories, essays, articles, and a humorous book of advice for dads of all ages. Edgerton has taught university English and creative writing for most of his prolific writing career and is currently the Thomas S. Kenan Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing in the MFA program at UNC Wilmington, where he lives with his wife, Kristina, and their three children (he also has a grown daughter from a previous marriage). I have thought of Clyde Edgerton as a Renaissance Man since I first read his hot-off-the-press 1985 novel Raney. Not only does Edgerton write break-your-heart and make-you-laugh stories of humanity’s enduring human-ness (dark shadows and all), he writes and sings music, plays in a band, paints and shows his art in galleries, and creates a vibrant daily life with his young family. He’s also been a hunter, fisherman, aviator, and he served in the US Air Force during the Vietnam War. So what’s up with Renaissance Man fifteen years since our last interview for NCLR.2 He has been not only making art in many modes, making a new family, writing up a storm, teaching graduate creative writing workshops, but also following his intellectual and imaginative interests into the world of such cultural topics as racism in our time and the dangers of technology to the life of the mind. In the following interview, put together from an email exchange between September and December 2015, Clyde Edgerton details the ongoing invention of a fascinating and far-reaching career. SHERYL CORNETT: Since our last interview a number of years ago, you have four new books, in addition to Lunch at the Piccadilly, which was then in progress: two novels, The Bible Salesman and Night Train, and two nonfiction, Solo: My Adventure in the Air and Papadaddy’s Book for New Fathers: Advice for Dads of All Ages. Talk to us about how these books are
PHOTOGRAPH BY ALICE OSBORN
interview with Edgerton, as well as an interview with him in the special feature section celebrating the centennial anniversary of the first flight
ABOVE BOTTOM Clyde Edgerton, 2016 inductee
into the North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame, Weymouth Center, Southern Pines, 16 Oct. 2016
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REINVENTING THE RENAISSANCE MAN
different from your earlier works.3 CLYDE EDGERTON: Both novels seem to be thematically connected to race and religion, two topics I seem to be destined to write about. Both novels are connected to my childhood in some way – as are several other novels. These last two novels were edited by Pat Strachan rather than Shannon Ravenel because I changed publishers just after Solo. I hated to lose Shannon’s expertise, yet I was happy to work with Pat. A difference from the earlier novels, especially in The Night Train, is a looser point of view. The reader can decide if this becomes distracting. Another difference is that I wrote The Night Train without quote marks. I won’t do that again. 2
ABOVE TOP NCLR 2003, which included Cornett’s
N C L R ONLINE
Sheryl Cornett, “Like a Brother: Profile of a Literary in NCLR 2003 was another interview with Edgerton, Friendship,” an interview with Tim McLaurin and conducted by Tonita Branan for the special feature Clyde Edgerton,” NCLR 12 (2003): 160–73. section of the issue commemorating the centennial anniversary of the first flight, after which Edgerton 3 Edgerton’s Lunch at the Piccadilly (Algonquin, wrote Solo: My Adventures in the Air (Algonquin, 2003) is featured on North Carolina Humor: The 2005). Since Papadaddy’s Book for New Fathers: Old Mirth State with Mirth Carolina Laugh Tracks, Advice to Dads of All Ages (Little, Brown, 2013), the CD companion to NCLR 2008. The Bible Edgerton has been writing a column that appears Salesman (Little, Brown, 2008) and The Night simultaneously in North Carolina writer James Train (Little, Brown, 2011) were reviewed in NCLR Dodson’s Salt (Wilmington) Pine Straw (Southern 2009 and NCLR Online 2012, respectively. Also Pines) and O. Henry (Greensboro) magazines.