The Calling - Softcover

Watson, Sterling

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0989237214 ISBN 13: 9780989237215

Publisher: PFP, 2013

Synopsis

The Calling is the story of Blackford "Toad" Turlow, an ambitious, impressionable young man who aspires to be a writer. The voice in his head is that of Eldon Odom, a famous — sometimes infamous — novelist to whom Toad apprentices himself. In the beginning, Toad devours every morsel from Odom, both words and actions. But along the way he learns far more than the art of crafting fiction. He discovers that behind Odom's genius is a warped human being who abuses himself and those around him with alcohol, drugs and debauchery. Instead of teaching his eager disciples about writing, Odom uses them to fulfill his base desires. But Toad listens carefully to "The Old Man," the writer who years before was Odom's own mentor and who describes himself as "just the strange boy who cared to write things down." Toad is also influenced by the echoes o f his reckless, lovable dead sister, Trish; Odom's lean and lusty girlfriend, Lindy Briggs; Odom's loving and patient wife, Miss Sully; and by Toad's own girlfriend, the knowing Ardis Baines From this boozy, brilliant cast of characters, Toad eventually learns that a man and his art are two different things, that the worth of one may far exceed the other, and that there are dangerously thin lines between creativity and madness, between dedication and obsession. The Calling is beautifully written and thoroughly engrossing novel of passion and purpose — one that tells much about the calling and the called. "The characters ...are vividly realized, resistant to stereotypes. And the story's three female leads — Ardis, Toad's sometime girlfriend; Missy Sully, Odom's wife; and Lindy, Odom's current mistress — are complex individuals who play out their expected roles in unexpected fashion," said Nancy Pate in her review for the Orlando Sentinel. And, the Winston Salem Journal wrote, "Watson has much to say about life and art, about creativity and obsession, about the danger of violating reasonable bounds. He says it very well."

About this title

From Publishers Weekly:

Blackford "Toad" Turlow is an unassuming young Southerner who aspires to be a famous writer. While enduring relative poverty in Florida, Toad works in a convenience store, eats at the Gutbomb and enthusiastically joins a writing seminar taught by his idol, celebrated novelist Eldon Odom. Sitting in the "egosphere" of the classroom with Odom's idiosyncratic disciples, including a sexual-device salesman and a Virginia Woolf look-alike, Toad becomes mesmerized by his teacher. But the young man's veneration turns to disenchantment when he observes Odom and his students at rowdy gatherings, where the hard-bitten novelist blithely uses drugs and participates in a gang rape. These sobering experiences impart new depth to Toad's writing, but his relationships with Odom's wife and mistress soon prove dangerously distracting. The author deftly fuses sardonic wit and graphic realism to portray Toad's growing maturity and his depraved idol's downfall. Watson (Weep No More My Brother also vividly renders Odom's repugnant private life, with its share of amorality and casually inflicted malice.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review:

"Easy going, full of compassion and rueful good humor...the voice of a man who loves words and good writing, who has heard the calling and has answered it with his heart."
-Orlando Sentinel

"Rich, musical prose that's the stuff of literature"
-St. Petersburg Times

"Watson has much to say about life and art, about creativity and obsession, about the danger of violating reasonable bounds.  He says it very well."
-Winston Salem Journal

"A fascinating and intense book with enough drive in it to lift a rocketship...it commands attention and startled respect."
-Greensboro News & Record

"The characters are vivid, the writing first-rate, the material intriguing...a novel of considerable power."
-The Raleigh News and Observer

About this edition

• Publisher: PFP
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 0989237214
• ISBN 13: 9780989237215
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 316