Redeye: A Western

By Clyde Edgerton

Book Overview

A New York Times Notable Book. Hang on to your ten gallon hats--Clyde Edgerton has taken his eye for detail, his ear for humor, and his nose for the odor of religious hypocrisy to the Wild West. In REDEYE, he leads us back to turn-of-the-century Colorado, where a motley crew of innocents and scoundrels, visionaries and vultures, tells us How the West Was Made Safe for Free Enterprise. "A Hollywood pitchman might call REDEYE Eudora Welty meets Mark Twain. An admirer of good fiction might say that Clyde Edgerton has combined structure, character, and style to create a small gem of a novel."--New York Times Book Review.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1565120604
• ISBN13: 9781565120600
• Release Date: January 1995
• Publisher: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill
• Length: 244 Pages
• Weight: 0.76 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.3" x 7.3"

Customer Reviews

Good Read

I found this book an entertaining read. There is more to it than that, but you can enjoy it on any level you like. It offers good prose, a plot that moves along at a comfortable pace, and an interesting historical setting. This is my first exposure to Clyde Edgarton but it will not be my last.

Different but great.

Read it. Not much more to say

Topnotch Light Fare

It must be said at the outset that "Redeye" is not only slim but lightweight, and its storyline a fragile structure indeed. Having said that, I have nothing left but praise for this book. Edgerton deftly weaves together an adventurous present in 1892 Colorado, a tragic past from 1857, and a framing text from 1915, by which time historic sites and scenic grandeur have degenerated into new ways to separate the unwary tourist from his money. He draws his characters, from the sweet and naive to the most dastardly, with a light and loving touch. He knows and appreciates his setting, and can instill this appreciation in his readers. He has worthwhile things to say on important matters--multi-ethnic society, the role of archeology, the profit motive--but makes his points without being moralistic or pedantic. And, oh yes, the man can be very funny. Edgerton knows what he's about, and has the talent and humanity do it well. An evening with "Redeye" is time well spent.

The Funniest Book I've Read This Year

I don't know what I was expecting after I heard the author talking about this on NPR. Certainly I knew it dealt with weighty matters like massacres and history and retribution. What I was definitely not expecting was that this would be the funniest book of the year. Sneaky funny. There I was trying to take it seriously when a line like "obviously blow up a Chinaman means something different here than in Georgia" comes along. Suddenly I found myself rolling on the floor, not even remembering what I had been worried about a few hours early