Reader's Guide copyright © 1998 by The Ballantine Publishing Group,
a division of Random House, Inc.


"Side-splittingly funny...Clyde Edgerton is the love child of Dave Barry and Flannery O'Connor....He approaches O'Connor's dark view of human nature often, but in the end he serves up a lot more humor than she does.  Just when it looks as though tragedy is going to be the blue-plate special, the laughs start arriving by the skilletful, a fresh batch on every page."
--Raleigh News and Observer

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK

"What Garrison Keillor has done for Lake Wobegon, Edgerton has done for Listre, creating a place of battered charms and dog-eared lore."
--The Washington Post

"Here, evil comes to sleepy Listre, N.C., circa 1950, in the form of a stranger with a pencil-thin mustache and a trunkful of dirty movies. Listre is the kind of rustic crossroads where the most exciting event in years was a collision between a mule and a pickup truck, where boys slip over to the Gulf station for a Nehi and a peek at the pinup calendar, and where everybody knows everybody else's secrets. It's the kind of place, in other words, where it seems like nothing ever changes--until the fateful day when everything changes at once."
--Entertainment Weekly

"Hilarious...Wonderful...Edgerton engagingly captures small-town America."
--Atlanta Journal & Constitution

"As much the story of a man who brings random badness into a good place as it is the story of a boy's search for his own salvation."
--Mark Childress, The New York Times Book Review

"His best book since Walking Across Egypt."
--Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

"A wonderful gallery of comic characters...In Clyde Edgerton, Southern Baptists have found a laureate to uncover their rich humor and humanity and to share without condescension or condemnation."
--The Boston Globe

"THIS MAY BE EDGERTON'S BEST NOVEL."
--Newark Star-Ledger

"Pitch the revival tent and sing hallelujah! Clyde Edgerton has returned to Listre...and for his legions of fans, that's cause for rejoicing.... Where Trouble Sleeps features an array of the wonderfully human, often quirky characters we've come to expect....As always, Edgerton skewers the hypocritical and sanctimonious with hilarious deftness....Beneath the comic flourishes lies a tender, bittersweet view of the world. Edgerton has given us small-town men and women in all their human frailty and splendor."
--Charlotte Observer

"Rollicking...Newcomers and old-time followers alike should...delight in his latest slice of small-town Southern life."
--Southern Living

"When Edgerton's debut novel Raney came out, I was impressed by how clever he seemed, how clearly and completely he was able to inhabit a voice, keep a joke running. Seven novels later, Edgerton hasn't lost that ability to capture a character, a tone, or a situation, but Where Trouble Sleeps is surely a superior, more mature work--clear evidence of his amazing growth as a writer. Without sacrificing humor, Edgerton has delved deeper into his characters; he takes what might have been simply funny or even ridiculous and reveals levels and layers of emotion, pathos, and even darkness. Amusing, engrossing, and insightful, Where Trouble Sleeps is a sublime achievement."
--The Spectator (Chapel Hill, NC)

"ECCENTRIC, FUNNY, AND CHARMING."
--American Way

"Where Trouble Sleeps is sure to win accolades and readers....A story about faith and temptation...Like cubist painters, [Edgerton] is able to write about everyday life as our minds, not just our eyes, experience it: from all sides at once....We're transfixed."
--St. Petersburg Times

"In his wonderful new novel Where Trouble Sleeps, Edgerton strips away the veneer of propriety that [Jesse] Helms and cronies slather over the South like a rancid barbecue sauce to reveal a far more recognizable region characterized by humor, hypocrisy, ignorance, lust, compassion, and the occasional good deed."
--Detour

"Superb...Clyde Edgerton is a first-rate storyteller. [He] has a musician's ear, an artist's eye, and a generous heart."
--San Antonio Express-News

"Once again Clyde Edgerton proves he's a master of the amiable, truthful, small-town novel."
--Trenton Times

"Religious hypocrites are artfully revealed and the eccentricities of the good, everyday characters are cheerfully described by a writer who understands, remembers, and loves this rural world and the sound of its people's language....Where Trouble Sleeps will make the reader want to sit in the Listre School grandstand on Friday nights, eat popcorn, and watch the picture show, all for 25 cents."
--North Carolina Libraries

"In the pitch-perfect tradition of Flannery O'Connor and William Faulkner, Edgerton spins things wildly, masterfully, hilariously out of control."
--Maxim

"Slyly satiric...Whether through cunning, bashful, or averted eyes, Edgerton reveals the innocent, the deluded, and the hypocritical with an unerring sense of humor and truth."
--Publishers Weekly (starred review)

1.         How would you characterize Stephen's relationship with each of his parents? With his church and his religion?

2.         What prospects of stability are offered to the community by the church? Instability?

3.         How is the church important to Jack Umstead?

4.         How is the setting (1950s, rural community) important to the story?

5.         What might Alease see in Jack Umstead and why? Does he have any redeeming qualities? If so, what are they?

6.         Discuss the significance of the title.

7.         How are the major characters and the community changed by Umstead's visit?

8.         How does shifting point of view aid or hinder your reading of this story?

9.         How might a year-2000 visit by Jack Umstead to Listre, North Carolina, be different from the 1952 visit in Where Trouble Sleeps?

10.          How were your childhood views of God and religion different from those of Stephen?

11.         How will Stephen's experiences as a child in Where Trouble Sleeps influence his life as an adolescent? As an adult? Which of the adults in the novel will he most resemble as an adult?

12.         What events or experiences in your own childhood could become the basis for a novel?

While he was growing up in North Carolina, probably no one would have predicted that Clyde Edgerton would be a professional writer. Most would have placed bets on his being a baseball player or a rock musician, even though his parents thought he might be a missionary or a concert pianist. He loved to hunt and fish with buddies. But even without early signs of literary leanings, Clyde has become one of the most prominent contemporary writers. Even though he is a product of the South, drawing primarily from one segment of society, his insight into the human condition makes his work universal. With degrees from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, he has taught writing and English education at various colleges and universities. He is very much in demand as a speaker about the writing process and as a reader of his own fiction. Clyde continues to write in Orange County, North Carolina, where he lives with his wife, Susan, and daughter, Catherine.