Raney: Amazon.ca: Clyde Edgerton: Books

Product Description

From Publishers Weekly

This charming vignette follows the early days of the marriage of Raney, an inno cent, Southern Baptist, and Charles, who is considerably more liberal and so phisticated than Raney. The two must make many accommodations to one an other and regularly consult a marriage counselor. PW found that the author's "ear for idiom is exact, the two central characters perceptibly developed and the other members of the small cast are giv en dimension and personality."
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Book Description

"This book is too good to keep to yourself. Read it aloud with someone you love, then send it to a friend. But be sure to keep a copy for yourself, because you'll want to read it again and again."
Elizabeth Forsythe Hailey
Raney is a small-town Baptist. Charles is a liberal from Atlanta. And RANEY is the story of their marriage. Charming, wise, funny, and truthful, it is a novel for everyone to love.
"A real jewel."
RICHMOND TIMES-DISPATCH

From the Paperback edition.

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First Sentence
We get married in two days: Charles and me. Read the first page

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Concordance

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Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover

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Customer Reviews

22 Reviews

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

Average Customer Review

4.0 out of 5 stars (22 customer reviews)

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1.0 out of 5 stars offensive, Jun 9 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Raney (Mass Market Paperback)

This book ridiculed the south. It ridiculed small town women. It was offensive to women and to the south. All the compromise was on Raney's part. Charles may have been a sweet man in many ways, but he was entirely inflexible and rude to Raney's family.

to me raney, but for her racism, was an endearing character. I don't see why she needed to be reformed in every sense of the word.

why should she have to have her baby baptised when her religion clearly did not believe in it and charles was hardly even religious. ridiculous?

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2.0 out of 5 stars Read it for the Dialect Capturing, April 27 2004

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"trwprid" (Durham, NC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Raney (Mass Market Paperback)

While every characer in this book (including Raney and Charles) rubbed me the wrong way, Edgerton's beautiful use of local color and regional dialect in the end was his saving grace--because of that I remain a loyal fan to his work.

I felt the book was disorganized and inconclusive in terms of character development and plot structure. The characters do not evolve throughout the story, although the issues that plague them are significant and deserve more attention than they are given.

I hated the feeling that I was being left out to dangle in the end. I was unable to determine whether to feel happy for the couple, or angry at the fact they were still together without resolving any of their problems.

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5.0 out of 5 stars Funny, well-written, and incredibly true-to-life, Dec 28 2003

By

Robert Moore (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Raney (Mass Market Paperback)

Although I live now in Chicago, was educated at Yale and the University of Chicago, and raised in Little Rock, Arkansas, nearly all my relatives are small town and rural folk exactly like Raney. There are many, many things to praise about this book: the voice of the narrator, the consistent excellence of the prose, the humor that pops up at every point, and the critical yet affectionate portrait of what life in the South is truly like, but the thing that most stands out for me is the extraordinary veracity of the characters.

If I could choose a book to add to a time capsule to be opened on July 4, 2376, to show people living then what life in the south truly was like way back in the late 20th century, this is the book I would select. It might not deal with the big themes, like slavery in TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, or the mystery of evil as in the writings of Flannery O'Connor, or possess the literary marvels of Faulkner, but it shows in vivid fashion exactly what small town life in the South is like in our time. I just reeled from the detail. For instance, many of my country cousins, when they wash dishes, do it precisely like Raney does: filling a sink with soapy water, and removing each dish or utensil after washing it in the same water that one uses for everything else. As a practice, it is indefensible from a hygienic point of view, yet it is a widespread cultural custom. Edgerton nails detail after detail.

I don't want to make this sound like a thinly disguised anthropological study, or suggest that this attention to detail is what makes the novel special. What makes this a great novel is the loving portrait Edgerton crafts of Raney herself. Although she possesses her own quirks and country foibles, she is throughout the book an adorable, sweet, lovable human being, believably and memorably brought to life by a master novelist. It is easily one of the finest novels about the South that I have ever read.

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Most recent customer reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars Amusing and thought-provoking
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