Hi folks,
(Warning: This is a long one!)
Recently, Court Merrigan, a writer friend of mine and I were in contact
about his master’s thesis in which he was writing a chapter on “country noir.”
I recommended my good friend Jane Bradley’s work to him and then thought about
some of my own work, which I also suggested he take a look at.
Specifically, my first collection of short stories, titled
MONDAY’S MEAL,
from the university of North Texas Press, pub. 1997.
I consider this probably my best work, along with THE
RAPIST and the forthcoming THE BITCH.
The reason I’m talking about it here, is that I know a lot
of folks may not be aware of this book and I’m taking this opportunity to make
you aware of it. Other than selling copies, I have another, ulterior motive for
bringing this book to your attention. A publisher is interested in the reprint
rights to it, but when I contacted the editor at UNT, he told me that they
wouldn’t release those rights to me until it was completely sold out. Well,
since there’s only a very few copies left in the warehouse, I thought I’d let
you know and if enough people buy up the remaining copies, it can see new life…
and that would make me ecstatic! Plus, I think you’ll find it to be a read you’ll
enjoy.
Here’s what the NY
Times had to say about Monday’s Meal:
The New York Times
November 16,
1997
By DENISE GESS
The sad wives, passive or violent husbands, parolees,
alcoholics and other failures in Leslie H. Edgerton's short-story collection
are pretty miserable people. And yet misery does have its uses. Raymond Carver
elevated the mournful complaints of the disenfranchised in his work, and
Edgerton makes an admirable attempt to do the same. He brings to this task an
unerring ear for dialogue and a sure-handed sense of place (particularly New
Orleans, where many of the stories are set). Edgerton has affection for even
his most despicable characters -- ''boring'' Robert, who pours scalding water
over his sleeping wife in ''The Last Fan''; Jake, the musician responsible for
his own daughter's death in ''The Jazz Player''; and Tommy in ''I Shoulda Seen
a Credit Arranger,'' whose plan to get hold of some money involves severing the
arm of a rich socialite -- but he never quite takes the reader past the brink
of horrible fascination into a deeper understanding. In the best story, ''My
Idea of a Nice Thing,'' a woman named Raye tells us why she drinks: ''My job.
I'm a hairdresser. See, you take on all of these other people's personalities and
troubles and things, 10 or 12 of 'em a day, and when the end of the day comes,
you don't know who you are anymore. It takes three drinks just to sort yourself
out again.'' Here Edgerton grants both the reader and Raye the grace of irony,
and without his authorial intrusion, we find ourselves caring about her
predicament.
Here’s what some other reviewers had to say:
“Those who enjoy reading Stephen King or watching The
Twilight Zone will eat up these unique, often gruesome, at times humorous,
short stories.” --School Library Journal
“This collection of short fiction by the author of The
Death of Tarpons contains considerable variety of tone, voice, and subject
matter, but the majority of the stories fall into two distinct groups. A large
number of stories focus on troubled and deeply self-absorbed men who seem
surprised to find themselves in failed romantic relationships. A number of
other stories focus on marginal Pulp Fiction types who are haunted by
personal demons and are drawn to violence. In stories that range in tone from
the comic and farcical to the darkly tragic and grim, Edgerton draws memorable
portraits of these dangerous and unpredictable characters.” --Library
Journal
Leslie H. Edgerton's new collection fully meets John Updike's explanation of
why we read short stories: "Each is a glimpse into another country: an
occasion for surprise, an excuse for wisdom, and an argument for charity."
The country of Edgerton's stories, in geographic terms, is New Orleans and the
Texas Gulf Coast. In human terms, Edgerton's territory is peopled by nightclub
musicians, cafe owners, teenage delinquents, inmates and ex-cons, the poor and
uneducated, the heartless and violent, and a snooty former debutante.
Monday's Meal is a busy collection
of twenty-one stories. A handful of these include recurring characters,
enhancing the sense throughout the book that Edgerton is writing about a
community rather than simply a series of individuals. The character with whom
we become best acquainted is Evan, a.k.a. Pete: "Now Pete's not my real
name, it's my middle name. Peter, actually. But when your first name's Evan,
and you hang out where I do, you want to use something else." Evan/Pete
hangs out in the seedier precincts of New Orleans. In "I Shoulda Seen a
Credit Arranger" and "Ten Cents a Dance," he gets involved in,
respectively, a botched kidnapping and the pursuit of an uninterested
prostitute. His ex-wife, the blueblood narrator of "Princess," finds
it horrific how he now "hangs out with low-lifes, even street people.
God!" Evan/Pete, though, is a street-wise, philosophizing,
get-by-as-best-you-can kind of guy who moves through a part of New Orleans
never viewed from the tour bus.
Evan/Pete is an amusing character, yet not all of Edgerton's down-and
-outers are. "The Jazz Player" portrays an angry young man desperate
to release "that intense, throbbing, terrible, last blast of pent-up fury
and frustration and guilt and anguish and loss and death." In "The
Mockingbird Cafe," one of the strongest stories here for its concision, a
black prison escapee endures a white cop's tormenting of him and then sullenly
walks away. In "Rubber Band," a kid just released from the
reformatory, made cynical and weary of the world, anticipates his own snapping
point. While Edgerton can sketch a city hardship scene comparable to Joseph
Mitchell's--and several of the stories have the casualness of familiar essays
about them--Edgerton establishes the kind of convincing, and wrenching, interiority
with his characters achieved by only the most adept fiction writers.
Edgerton does not write exclusively about people living on society's fringe.
Sometimes his characters--as in "The Last Fan," about a dullard
husband's violent turn, or "Voodoo Love," about a yuppie couple's
falling out--are simply headed in that direction. To his credit, Edgerton aims
for range in his characters. While suspicion of identity interlopers across
ethnic and gender lines is often justified, the smart writer adopts various
personae in order to strive for empathy and understanding, rather than
appropriation. "My Idea of a Right Thing" exemplifies this purpose in
its striking account of a woman's struggle with alcoholism and the (often)
predominantly male world of Alcoholics Anonymous. Less dramatic, though no less
vivid, "Telemarketing" is the story of a woman dealing with an
emotionally distant husband and a pair of needy neighbors as she runs the cafe
she owns and longs to have a child.
Even Edgerton's most harrowing stories, such as "Hard Times,"
about the deadly abandonment of a woman and her children, read effortlessly.
The prose throughout is vibrant and precise. At times, the author's sharp ear
for colloquial mannerisms tends to turn his speakers into Runyonesque caricatures,
as when the high-brow belle in "Princess" exclaims indignantly,
"Why, I'd just die!" On the other hand, such dialect adds as much
local color as references to the Camellia Cafe or beignets. A case in point:
after protesting how he was "bum-rapped on that litigious," the
narrator of "Dream Flyer" gripes about the "effrippery" of
his jailers for putting him in the same cell with an
"orignal-diginal" like the Dream Flyer, who's scheduled to be
"exterminated for something he didn't do." In fiction as in life, I
suppose, better too much of a good thing than not enough.
Once again, the University of North Texas Press deserves high praise for its
commitment to publishing superb contemporary fiction. Leslie H. Edgerton is a
writer one should continue to seek out in the literary magazines and on the
new-releases shelf.
COPYRIGHT 1997 Studies in Short Fiction
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group
On Amazon, it garnered nine reviews, all five stars:
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Thoughts
of Raymond Carver, January 22, 2013
By
This review is from: Monday's Meal (Paperback)
As I read Les Edgerton's Monday's Meal, I couldn't help but
think of one of my favorite American short story writers - Raymond Carver. Les
has the same straight forward approach with his characters and stories, but if
you read them again, you realize that hidden within one story is another in the
background. Raymond Carver was famous for this and it is not easy to do. I
gladly and with ease, place Les Edgerton beside Raymond Carver as one of our
great American short story writers- no regrets.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Great
story collection!, August 26, 2011
By
This review is from: Monday's Meal (Paperback)
The stories in Blue Skies are terrific. Edgerton has a
style that is deceptively brilliant, both in the language-stringing ordinary
words together in new ways-and the way the stories unfold and end on an unusual
note.
It's not the kind of book to read all at once. Each story makes you stop and
think. They kind of catch a mood or emotion that is hard to define, and some
have really stayed with me, in particular, "Hard Times". I highly
recommend the collection.
Looking forward to reading his novels.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars The
hard side of life., June 30, 2011
By
This review is from: Monday's Meal (Paperback)
When it comes to short stories, well, the American's rule
the roost, they really do. Flannery O' Connor, Raymond Carver, Stephen King,
Dorothy Parker, Charles Bukowski, Richard Ford, Kyle Minor. Loads and loads
more.
And you can add Les Edgerton to that list.
Monday's Meal by Leslie H Edgerton was published in 1997 and contains
twenty-one tales of dirt realism. Sharp slices of American life. They're set in
New Orleans and Texas. Sometimes in bars or behind bars. They're about café
owners, hairdressers, nightclub musicians, prisoners, ex-cons, drifters and
drinkers.
Monday's Meal opens and closes `Blue Skies' and `Monday's Meal, tales of
strained relationships.' But the real meat is sandwiched between them. And
Monday's Meal is particularly meaty.
Some favourites: `The Mockingbird Café' is the story of a man in a low-rent bar
trying to mind his own business; `Hard Times' is bleak and scary and
brilliantly written; `The Last Fan' is a tragic look at a shattered marriage;
`My Idea Of A Nice Thing' is a touching and sad story of an alcoholic's
crumbling life;'Telemarketing,' is the story of a young couple just trying to
get by; `I Shoulda Seen a Credit Arranger,' is a Runyonesque crime story.
And there's plenty more to enjoy in Monday's Meal. Edgerton has a strong and
sure grasp of the lives of people who are standing on the edge of a precipice.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars These
stories are classics, April 17, 1999
By
This review is from: Monday's Meal (Paperback)
When I finished the last story in Monday's Meal I paused,
reflected, and then read it right through again from the beginning. Part of the
reason for my re-reading was a simple desire to repeat the pleasure; part of it
was a desire to understand what made these elegantly constructed stories tick.
Just where was I drawn from a realistic beginning into the banishment of the
ordinary - the strange, ordinary world that some of these stories inhabit? Just
where is the edge in these finely drawn personalities, the edge that leads to
the end? One can also learn from these stories. The craft, the amazing economy
deserve study, but one can just go along for the ride and enjoy. I would
compare some of the plots to Ray Carver's in their structure, but Edgerton has
it all over Carver in his depiction of personality. Edgerton's people have
depth, they are all different, and the actions flow entirely from their
natures. This is a collection not to be missed.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Edgerton
is the last of the Great American Authors, February 19, 1999
By
This review is from: Monday's Meal (Paperback)
This collection will grab you by the heart and wrench it
right out of your chest. The characters are hauntingly authentic as are the New
Orleans and South Texas settings they inhabit. These are deeply troubled
individuals coping with other troubled individuals who find solace only in the
bottle and the arid soil underneath the soles of their battered Tony Lamas.
Edgerton reigns as a supreme American author. A sort of Ray Carver meets Denis
Johnson. A literary man who succeeds where the academics fail--he knows plot,
he knows story, he knows action! The last of a great breed that includes
Hemingway, Mailer and Jim Harrison. It's simple. If you don't read Les
Edgerton, you lose.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Darkness
visible., January 29, 1999
By A Customer
This review is from: Monday's Meal (Paperback)
Edgerton's stories takes us down those side streets or out
into the backwoods most of us have passed by. What we meet there are the people
we have avoided all our lives. What we find is the human heart, its brightness
and dark corners. And we leave and return to the same world we have always
known, but it doesn't look the same. Joyously disturbing work, hard to ignore.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars One
of the best collections I have read, January 25, 1999
By A Customer
This review is from: Monday's Meal (Paperback)
'Monday's Meal' is aptly named . These stories are salty
and pungent with a hint of bitter chicory. No one serves these morsels, the
reader has to dip his fingers into the pot. They might come out burned, or
dripping grease, but the tidbit they clutch is never bland. The characters are
alive. We know them well, or we know someone who knew them and told us their
stories. No one tells them as well as Les Edgerton. Some stories can be gulped
down and digested later. Some like 'Hard Times' cannot be gulped. It must be
taken in small sips, sometimes days apart. It will take you that long to
identify the taste.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars These
are some of the best short stories I've read, January 21, 1999
By A Customer
This review is from: Monday's Meal (Paperback)
"Monday's Meal" is aptly named . These stories
are salty and pungent with a hint of bitter chicory. No one serves these
morsels, the reader has to dip his fingers into the pot. They might come out
burned, or dripping grease, but the tidbit they clutch is never bland. The
characters are alive. We know them well, or we know someone who knew them and
told us their stories. No one tells them as well as Les Edgerton. Some stories
can be gulped down and digested later. Some like "Hard Times" cannot
be gulped. It must be taken in small sips, sometimes days apart. It will take
you that long to identify the taste.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Strong
hard hitting prose for deep thinkers., January 10, 1999
By
This review is from: Monday's Meal (Paperback)
Monday's Meal is a collection of hard hitting short
stories. If the reader is looking for a pleasant diversion, look elsewhere. If
the reader wishes to be challenged to think about life and it's many
complexities then choose Monday's Meal."It's Different" is this
reviewer's favorite selection from the book. At first glance this seems like
such a simple tale, but the story stayed with this reader long after the book's
covers were closed. Monday's Meal is a book one will read again and again.
There is an added bonus to
this book. The fantastic art of Lu Ann Barrow. There’s a great story behind
this cover. During its publication, my publisher, Fran Vick, and her crew,
including my editor, Charlotte Wright, couldn’t come up with a cover idea they
liked. Then, one day as she was leaving for the office, Fran happened to glance
at a painting she owned hanging in the foyer of her home. It was a painting by the
acclaimed artist Lu Ann Barrow, titled Rain Dance. “This is perfect,” she said.
As it happens, Fran knew Ms. Barrow personally and took a chance and called
her, asking what it would cost to use her art for the cover. To her amazement,
Ms. Barrow graciously said she could use it gratis!
It was perfect.
Today, short story
collections are easily published due to the ebook phenomena. In those days, it
was very difficult to get a collection published by a legitimate publisher. The
“rules” were that at least half of the stories had to have been previously
published by prestigious literary magazines. The other rule was that there had
to be a theme that connected all the stories. Well, I’d satisfied the first
requirement—every one of the stories had been published by some of the best
litmags out there—places like The South
Carolina Review, High Plains Literary Review, Kansas Quarterly/Arkansas Review,
Whiskey Island Review and others. One story subsuquently appeared in
Houghton-Mifflin’s “Best American Mystery Stories.” But… there really wasn’t a
theme to them. They represented a variety of subjects, voices, themes. To climb
over that obstacle, I came up with the idea of titling it “Monday’s Meal.”
That came from the Southern
tradition of Monday’s being wash days. The deal was, every Monday, the wife did
the weekly washing… while also tending to the ten kids she had, her husband,
the house cleaning, and all of the other chores, including feeding her brood.
Eventually, a common meal emerged. Usually, it was a form of either stew or
gumbo. Something that could be put on the stove and when she had a few extra
minutes, she could run in and throw in a new ingredient. The gumbo cooked all
day long. The ingredients thrown into the pot were all over the place. At first
glance, it didn’t look as if they’d go together, but at the end of the day they
all combined to create a wonderful, delicious dish. In our house, we always had
gumbo and one of the best ingredients (in season) was when my grandma put in
crab eggs. I gave the collection the name of Monday’s Meal to indicate a kind
of gumbo where a bunch of unrelated ingredients came together to create a tasty
meal.
Personally, I felt it was a
really neat idea… and so did Fran and Charlotte.
Which was why Lu Ann Barrow’s
painting was so perfect. It shows a poor family, cavorting in a sudden summer
shower in front of their shack. In the background, you can see the family wash
on a clothesline. It’s the women of the family (the father was at his work),
along with the family dogs. There’s even an old-fashioned washing machine on
the porch.
It was… absolutely perfect.
Almost as if Lu Ann Barrow had painted it just for this book!
Anyway, it’s a cover that
the publisher could never have afforded but that we were able to get because of
the largesse of Ms. Barrow. When you buy the book, you also get a cover of an
incredible work of art.
One more “inside” bit of
info. One of the stories is one I wrote when I was 12 years old and when it was
published both by a literary magazine and in this collection, not a word was
changed from that early version. The first three who can guess which story it
is, I’ll send a copy of my newest novel, THE RAPIST to—either the ebook version
or the paperback—your choice. Post your guesses here in the Comments.
Okay. Infomercial over.
Hope you glom onto a copy so UNT sells out and I can get back the rights and
reissue it as both an ebook and paperback.
Thanks for considering it!
Blue skies,
Les
And, thanks for your support and helping make me a happy camper!
(What a happy camper looks like in the wild...)
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