Book Review of Clyde Edgerton’s “The Night Train”

Review by Cos Barnes

A comic novel, “The Night Train,” is Edgerton at his best. It is the story of intense racial conflicts in the South in the early 1960s. In a small town in North Carolina where the railroad track divides the black section from the white, the story tells of the friendship of Dwayne Hallston, a white musician who aspires to emulate the success of James Brown with his band, the Amazing Rumblers, and Larry Lime, a black teenager who wants to play piano like Thelonious Monk, and is being given lessons by the Bleeder.

Don’t you like those names? There are more, too. There’s Uncle Young, who picks up trash and is a meat runner for the dog food factory; Flash Acre,  who works at the factory and looks after his ailing mother;  and Aunt Marzie,  who gave all her kin monikers that included at least 10 names. A musician himself, Edgerton spells out the scales the young musicians must master, the beat, the tempo and the dedication necessary to succeed. He even adds a dancing chicken to the mix.

I have been a fan of Edgerton’s since the publication of “Raney,” his first and somewhat controversial novel. I heard him at Weymouth Center for the Arts and Humanities in Southern Pines  several times when he played his banjo. This novel is fun reading. Enjoy.