First royalty statement for Hard Times from Italian publisher, Elliot Edizioni!

 Hi folks,

I'm very pleased to announced I just received the first royalty statement from Italian publisher Elliot Edizioni and not only did it earn out its advance, it earned almost three times that amount. I take great pride in that. Every one of my books that were on the bookshelves have earned out their advances in the first accounting. It's the key to success.

Much thanks to bookseller Mauro Falciano who recommended this book to Elliot Edizioni's Loretta Santini. And, thanks to Loretta for taking a chance on it. More good news--they've contracted to publish Italian versions of The Death of Tarpons and The Bitch this fall.

And, a big shout-out and thank-you to my friend Joe Lansdale, who provided a fantastic foreword to the book, which contributed significantly to its success.

JOE LANSDALE SAYS

(INTRO TO  TEMPI DIFFICILI (HARD TIMES))

 

        Les Edgerton is one of our best and most underrated writers, and that’s a sad moniker to throw at anyone. Underrated.

To know you’re doing fine work, and not obscure or abstract work, to wake up and go at it every day, hammer and tongs, with the understanding that you may not be reaching the wider audience you would like or deserve, that’s got to put a kink in your mindset from time to time.

        But Les seems to be made of stronger stuff, or has the ability to de-kink the kink and keep moving forward, writing one amazing book after another.

When he writes he takes his soul and winds it up and lets it loose and it sails across the literary skies with grace and truth, and damn if just about everyone seems to be looking in the wrong direction.

        I once told him, and meant it, that when he writes crime, he my favorite crime writer, though after one of his novels, I have to come up for air for a while before I leap into his next. His books can be that intense.

        Thing about Les, though, he’s not just a crime writer. He writes other things. And when he writes crime, he’s not just a crime writer. I like his kind of bonkers approach to fiction, as he both tells the daily truth, and tells the metaphorical truth as well.

A storm isn’t merely a storm, an arithmetic award torn in two is more than a piece of paper or a momentary disappointment in the life of his main character in Hard Times.

 It is the symbol for all she is, and you might say all she will be. The award is ripped in half by an envious boy. This leads to the main character taping it back together and tucking it away. Wounded dreams, deferred, taped up and stored in wishful reserve. That one scene tells you who Amelia is. How she sees life. How she handles it. Any happiness she might have comes with Scotch tape and disappointment.

        I have read a lot of Les’s work, and I have liked it all, but this, hands down, pinky-swear, is his finest novel to date. It takes place where I live—East Texas—and though I might have a quarrel here and there with how the location is presented, and a wish for a quotation mark, its minor. How it feels is presented with accuracy. How Amelia feels is unquestioned. He is inside of that character, and I don’t care if he’s an older man writing about a younger girl, a young woman, he remembers youth, and his radar is hot and high and he has picked up the human condition vibrating in the air. He knows people, and seems to best know people who exist on the edge, supported by hot smoke and a doubtful prayer.

        This is a dark and grimy story about a young girl growing up, making mistakes, and having to survive under tough conditions and enough disappointment Job might ask for room at the Devil’s table. Even the things that go well for Amelia come with that aforementioned Scotch tape and disappointment.

        I never had to deal with the things Amelia has to deal with, but I did deal with being poor, if not being dunked down at the bottom of abject poverty. My family was close to the bone all of the time, and as my father once said, if it cost a quarter to shit, we’d have to throw up. We thought of ourselves as broke, instead of poor, but what we have here is a different mindset. Amelia’s life is down deep in the greasy bucket of existence. A large bucket with slick sides and no easy way to climb out, jump out, and there’s no one to boost her up or to lower down a rope and say, “Take this. I’m pulling your ass out of there, sister.”

        And if there was a rope for Amelia, there’s a good chance it would fray and break.

        Amelia is in for it. Life is chasing her with an axe, so to speak. Still, she’s after that American Dream.

        I believe in it, by the way. I’m a product of it. But it’s a dream that some are better able to grasp. It’s a dream that isn’t constantly snatched away from some. But for others, it’s too far away to reach.

        But like Gatsby reaching out for the Green Light from his position on the pier, she never stops reaching. Or at least thinking about reaching.

        Let me add, I like how this novel feels, how it is written, how the characters are presented, even more than the plot. Which, is indeed engaging, but this is not a novel of stick figures chasing to the last page. It’s got meat on its bones and blood under its hide.

But the color of sweat and despair, the sounds of tragedy and unexpected comedy, the taste of hope covered in shit, will fill a readers head before one truly understands what it all means. Or before one understands that this is a quintessential American novel, in the way Wise Blood is, in the way Gatsby is. It seems simple, but buddy, it means bloody business.

        I wish I had written this.

        A writer can’t offer another writer greater praise.

        Truth is, though, only one writer could have written such a marvelous and constantly surprising book.

        Les Edgerton.

        And long may he write.

 

 

 

Joe R. Lansdale

Nacogdoches, Texas

Big Bear Manor

       

Blue skies,

Les