In Memory of Junior

Written by Clyde Edgerton

Narrated by Norman Dietz and Sally Darling

In Summerlin, North Carolina, it is-quite literally-a race to the finish. Glenn and Laura Bales lie dying in the same house, and although Laura is more interested in her Whitman's Sampler chocolates, and Glenn in whatever happened to his first wife, Evelyn, their children have their eyes unswervingly fixed on the inheritance. Who will get the money, and what it will mean for this unusual little Southern community is a richly comic novel about endings.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
• Release date: Sep 30, 2011
• ISBN: 9781461810223

Reviews for In Memory of Junior

[carmenmilligan · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Very entertaining and fast read. Nice summer book.

[2chances · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

like Clyde Edgerton. He does lovely Southern dialect (it isn't quite Louisiana, but then it's not meant to be) and he is very, very good at bringing out both the intrinsic goodness of his characters and their inability to see another point of view. And quite often that's the center of his novels: a pivotal character beginning to recognize that the Way We've Always Done It isn't necessarily the One Best Way.In Memory of Junior has those ingredients. And I liked those ingredients. But overall, I have to say, this is not his best work. In Memory of Junior is about a complicated family - a couple who have each been married before, have children by those marriages, and are now dying. Depending on who dies first, one of the stepchildren is going to inherit land worth millions of dollars. The unfolding drama is narrated by everyone from the Fullers (who visit the sick for fun) to the guy who delivers tombstones - ultimately, too many narrators, and a drama with too many subplots. But I truly loved this part, where one of the characters tries to explain to his brother about competing points of view:"The way something smells is not in this world. It's in our heads, because if it was in the world, you would not have flies landing on shit, because shit would stink to flies too, to everybody, to all living creatures. Why do you think a goddam fly will land on shit instead of a flower? Because a turd smells good to them, that's why."

[samsattler · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

For many readers, there is something particularly appealing about comic novels set in the South. Perhaps it goes back to their exposure as young readers to the classic novels of Mark Twain. It might even be that they see a little of themselves and their families in the plots of these novels. Are comic Southern novels, after all, as popular elsewhere as they are in the very part of the country in which they are set? I have to doubt it. Clyde Edgerton's nine novels are filled with quirky characters so busy living life according to their own rules and traditions that they seldom stop to consider what the rest of the world might think of them and their efforts. His books are, at times, laugh-out-loud funny, but his humor is more often of the type that makes you smile at the antics of his characters as they navigate their way through Edgerton's rather eccentric plotlines. In Memory of Junior is no exception. Although I had read six other Edgerton novels, I was unfamiliar with this seventeen-year-old novel (1993) prior to discovering a pristine first edition copy of it in a local used-book bookstore. I figured I would enjoy the story and, despite an overabundance of characters (15-20 main and secondary characters) in such a small book, I was correct. Brothers Faison and Tate Bales were deserted by their mother when Tate was just a toddler. Glenn, their father, eventually remarried and gave his boys a half-sister by the name of Faye. Now, Glenn Bates and Laura, his second wife, seem to be in a contest to see which one of them will die first, a contest that will determine the immediate futures of Faison, Tate, and Faye. If Glenn dies first, the family farm passes to Laura and, eventually, to Faye. If Laura dies first, the farm and the valuable land on which it sits passes to Glenn and, finally, to his sons. The Bales find themselves involved in one of the most bizarre death watches imaginable since it seems that both the elder Bales could die at any moment. The real fun of In Memory of Junior comes from Edgerton's use of several first-person narrators to tell the family's story, both past and present. These narrators range from the old black housekeeper who has made a career of caring for old white people before they die, to Uncle Grove, a Bales family outcast because he is the brother of Glenn's runaway, first wife. Along the way, readers will watch as Uncle Grove tries to wrangle a spot for himself in the family cemetery, Faison and his ex-wife fight about what name should appear on her young son's tombstone, and as Tate's teenaged son surprisingly bonds with Grove. If you are not offended by graveyard humor, this one is great fun. I will warn you, too, that if you want to keep up with the story, you need to pay particular attention to the family tree Edgerton provides at the front of the book for your reference. It is difficult enough to keep up with twenty or so characters even with the tree, impossible to do so without it. Rated at: 3.5

[laytonwoman3rd · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I read this as an antidote to Bastard Out of Carolina, the last book I finished. Edgerton deals with the same sort of characters as BOC in a completely different way--with sympathy, humor (dark as it sometimes is)and understanding. For a book that's basically about death and human reactions to it, this is a rib-tickler. You can't feel bad while reading Edgerton. He's medicinal.