Blue Ridge - Hardcover

Pearson, T. R.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0670892696 ISBN 13: 9780670892693

Publisher: Viking Adult, 2000

Synopsis

The new deputy sheriff of a Virginia town investigates the discovery of a human skeleton on the Appalachian trail while his cousin, an actuary, heads to New York to investigate the death of his son. 22,500 first printing.

About this title

About the Author

T. R. Pearson's six widely acclaimed novels include A Short History of a Small Place, Off for the Sweet Hereafter, The Last of How It Was, and Cry Me a River.

Reviews

The talented Pearson has moved away from the zany Southern milieu of A Short History of a Small Place and other novels, but his work still resonates with whip-sharp dark humor. In this insightful, sardonic tale of self-discovery and self-deceit, two corpses, one in New York City and one in rural Virginia, send two cousins on separate but parallel quests. Ray Tatum is the new sheriff's deputy in sleepy Hogarth, Va., where some hikers discover a human skeleton, its skull bashed in, on the Appalachian Trail. Investigating the case with the help of a brassy female African-American park ranger named Kit Carson, Ray is forced to come to terms with the collapse of his marriage, his somewhat arid life and the nature of the backwoods town he calls home. Meanwhile, Ray's cousin Paul, an actuary in Roanoke, is summoned to Manhattan to identify what may be the remains of a young man named Troy, the son he never really knew. Paul soon finds himself imperiled in New York's drug underworld and in the thrall of Troy's actress girlfriend and of Giles, the deadly but charismatic criminal who once employed Troy. Both cousins must ultimately attempt the complex calculus of placing values on truth, justice, obligation and human life itself. Pearson writes evocatively of the sometimes cozy, sometimes sinister decadence of fringe communities both North and South, his descriptions enlivened by satirical details and witty editorializing. His suspenseful narrative alternates between the two plots; Ray recounts his tale in a wry omniscient voice, while Paul's first-person account is ruefully self-absorbed and idiosyncratic. These characters may not be as hilariously eccentric as some in Pearson's previous books, but they are equally Dand insidiouslyDmemorable. Author tour. (Sept.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Someone once described T. R. Pearson as a cross between Faulkner and Mark Twain. That's a comparison that should flatter any writer, but, remarkably, it's apt. In seven earlier novels, his stories and prose meandered like a lazy river as his characters confronted the grand themes of literature and life--love, death, faith, passion, loss, desire--as well as its trivial and antic moments. Pearson's voice is at once compassionate, wise, and very, very funny. This novel is no exception. In it, the stories of two men, cousins Ray and Paul Tatum, are told in parallel. Ray is a new deputy sheriff in Hogarth, Virginia, a sleepy town along the Appalachian Trail. His first assignment is to find out what happened to the set of human bones discovered by hikers on the trail. Paul is an actuary who must go to New York City to identify the headless body of a man he hasn't seen in many years--his son. These stories play out in Virginia and in Manhattan, and each locale and its denizens offers Pearson wonderful opportunities to observe and comment on the human condition. Another fine novel by a master storyteller. Thomas Gaughan
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Viking Adult
• Publication date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0670892696
• ISBN 13: 9780670892693
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 243