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Redeye: A Western
A New York Times Notable Book. Hang on to your ten gallon hats--Clyde Edgerton has taken his eye for detail, his ear for humor, and his nose for the odor of religious hypocrisy to the Wild West. In REDEYE, he leads us back to turn-of-the-century Colorado, where a motley crew of innocents and scoundrels, visionaries and vultures, tells us How the West Was Made Safe for Free Enterprise. "A Hollywood pitchman might call REDEYE Eudora Welty meets Mark Twain. An admirer of good fiction might say that Clyde Edgerton has combined structure, character, and style to create a small gem of a novel."--New York Times Book Review.
254 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 4, 1995
124 people are currently reading
190 people want to read
About the author
Clyde Edgerton
48 books275 followersClyde Edgerton is widely considered one of the premier novelists working in the Southern tradition today, often compared with such masters as Eudora Welty and Flannery O'Connor.
Although most of his books deal with adult concerns--marriage, aging, birth and death--Edgerton's work is most profoundly about family. In books such as Raney, Walking Across Egypt, The Floatplane Notebooks, and Killer Diller, Edgerton explores the dimensions of family life, using an endearing (if eccentric) cast of characters. "Edgerton's characters," writes Mary Lystad in Twentieth-Century Young Adult Writers, "have more faults than most, but they also have considerable virtues, and they are so likable that you want to invite them over for a cup of coffee, a piece of homemade apple pie, and a nice long chat."
Raised in the small towns of the North Carolina Piedmont, Edgerton draws heavily on the storytelling traditions of the rural south in his novels. Without the distractions of big-city life and the communications revolution of the late twentieth century, many rural Americans stayed in close touch with their relatives, and often shared stories about family members with each other for entertainment.
Among Edgerton’s awards are: Guggenheim Fellowship; Lyndhurst Prize; Honorary Doctorates from UNC-Asheville and St. Andrews Presbyterian College; membership in the Fellowship of Southern Writers; the North Carolina Award for Literature; and five notable book awards from the New York Times.
Although most of his books deal with adult concerns--marriage, aging, birth and death--Edgerton's work is most profoundly about family. In books such as Raney, Walking Across Egypt, The Floatplane Notebooks, and Killer Diller, Edgerton explores the dimensions of family life, using an endearing (if eccentric) cast of characters. "Edgerton's characters," writes Mary Lystad in Twentieth-Century Young Adult Writers, "have more faults than most, but they also have considerable virtues, and they are so likable that you want to invite them over for a cup of coffee, a piece of homemade apple pie, and a nice long chat."
Raised in the small towns of the North Carolina Piedmont, Edgerton draws heavily on the storytelling traditions of the rural south in his novels. Without the distractions of big-city life and the communications revolution of the late twentieth century, many rural Americans stayed in close touch with their relatives, and often shared stories about family members with each other for entertainment.
Among Edgerton’s awards are: Guggenheim Fellowship; Lyndhurst Prize; Honorary Doctorates from UNC-Asheville and St. Andrews Presbyterian College; membership in the Fellowship of Southern Writers; the North Carolina Award for Literature; and five notable book awards from the New York Times.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 44 reviews
September 10, 2015
1857's horrific Mountain Meadows Massacre - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountai... - was mentioned in some detail in Mark Twain's Roughing It, and reading that made me want to learn more on the subject. I remember reading about the incident for the first time in Edgerton's book and decided to open this one again. Turns out, this is not really about the day when Brigham Young ordered an attack on a wagon train, but instead about the fictitious Eagle City Shootout of 1892. Most of the novel is concerned with introducing the players in the later event, among them a school-marmish single gal, a British archeologist, a man hilariously attempting to perfect mortuary science and an old bounty hunter who uses his dog, Redeye, as a weapon.
While still a worthwhile read, this was not nearly as good as I'd remembered, so, YOINK, there goes a star.
One plus - in yet another example of how one book leads to another, the addenda has made me add Jack London's 1915 novel The Star Rover to my to-read list.
It never ends . . . and that makes me so, so happy.
While still a worthwhile read, this was not nearly as good as I'd remembered, so, YOINK, there goes a star.
One plus - in yet another example of how one book leads to another, the addenda has made me add Jack London's 1915 novel The Star Rover to my to-read list.
It never ends . . . and that makes me so, so happy.
April 5, 2021
An offbeat Western to say the least, though definitely in line with my personal interests.
Redeye is a novel that explores the voices of various individuals that find themselves in Mumford Rock at the time of an archaeological discovery on Mesa Largo. The cast is large and every character gives their account of events with appropriate grammar and manner of speaking.
There is Cobb Pittman, a ruthless bounty hunter with a raw eye condition and a thirst for vengeance following the Mountain Meadows Massacre. He is accompanied by Redeye, a pitbull cross with an equally mean streak that Pittman struggles to keep under control.
There is also Star Copeland, a young civilised Christian woman bombarded with proposals, and Bumpy Copeland, an adoptive cowboy son who is rough around the edges but quite innocent. Other significant characters include an idealistic Englishman named Andrew Collier, a dubious Mormon ferryman known as Bishop Thorpe, two ambitious idiotic businessman called Bill Blankenship and P.J. Copeland and two bickering Native Americans along for the ride, known as Mudfoot and Lobo.
There is a lot going on in this novel, most of it absurd. There are exploding Chinamen, a mummified baby being nursed by a traumatised elderly matriarch, guides bickering in their mother tongue about who has the bigger appendage and a shootout on a tourist trail. One thing that strikes me most about Edgerton's approach to Redeye is how subtly he reveals the desperation in his White characters, colonial types revealed as ridiculous by their offhand dehumanisation and insane aspirations. While you can't root for all of these characters, there is a definite schadenfreude in reading about their various marches into disaster.
It has been a while since I read a book that used multiple first-person narration but it does work here. Edgerton has an ear for speech patterns and no two narrators sound exactly the same. Also he has clearly done his research into Mormonism in the West, which I found rather educational.
I enjoyed Redeye though most of the characters were fairly despicable. If you're drawn to Western tales that reveal the peculiar state of the Wild West, then this will likely amuse you as it did me.
Redeye is a novel that explores the voices of various individuals that find themselves in Mumford Rock at the time of an archaeological discovery on Mesa Largo. The cast is large and every character gives their account of events with appropriate grammar and manner of speaking.
There is Cobb Pittman, a ruthless bounty hunter with a raw eye condition and a thirst for vengeance following the Mountain Meadows Massacre. He is accompanied by Redeye, a pitbull cross with an equally mean streak that Pittman struggles to keep under control.
There is also Star Copeland, a young civilised Christian woman bombarded with proposals, and Bumpy Copeland, an adoptive cowboy son who is rough around the edges but quite innocent. Other significant characters include an idealistic Englishman named Andrew Collier, a dubious Mormon ferryman known as Bishop Thorpe, two ambitious idiotic businessman called Bill Blankenship and P.J. Copeland and two bickering Native Americans along for the ride, known as Mudfoot and Lobo.
There is a lot going on in this novel, most of it absurd. There are exploding Chinamen, a mummified baby being nursed by a traumatised elderly matriarch, guides bickering in their mother tongue about who has the bigger appendage and a shootout on a tourist trail. One thing that strikes me most about Edgerton's approach to Redeye is how subtly he reveals the desperation in his White characters, colonial types revealed as ridiculous by their offhand dehumanisation and insane aspirations. While you can't root for all of these characters, there is a definite schadenfreude in reading about their various marches into disaster.
It has been a while since I read a book that used multiple first-person narration but it does work here. Edgerton has an ear for speech patterns and no two narrators sound exactly the same. Also he has clearly done his research into Mormonism in the West, which I found rather educational.
I enjoyed Redeye though most of the characters were fairly despicable. If you're drawn to Western tales that reveal the peculiar state of the Wild West, then this will likely amuse you as it did me.
June 19, 2021
Found by searching for humorous fiction at my library. TL;DR review: good characters, no plot.
This short novel is a western, historical, which brings together some Mormons, some Indians, a girl from the Carolinas, a teenage cowboy, a shady entrepreneur, and a Quaker family. This makes it sound like a great set-up to a joke, but there is very little humor in this novel. It is narrated mostly in first person, and the author does a good enough job as distinguishing the voices.
The bad: the plot promises to be, via a device that advertises an excursion, about a trip to some Mesa Verde-type cliff houses. In fact, every two chapters, the author gives you the ad again, or parts of it, to remind you of what's coming. But you hit the 50% mark and in fact no one has left on any excursion and nothing much has happened. You know how, as you're reading a book, you're supposed to be forming questions as you read that worry you and make you turn pages? There aren't many formed here, and the ones that exist are small. Is the blowing up the dead Chinese guy thing going to pay off a la Chekhov's gun? Is Granny going to speak a second time and does it matter? Is that frog important or not? Will Star really consider the Bishop's proposal to become his 7th wife? Probably not, you think, because those don't really relate to this excursion to the cliff dwellings, if that's what the novel is indeed supposed to be about. (And my tiny story questions may make this sound interesting, but honestly, it isn't. Those are straws I'm grasping at. There is no story question.)
So from 50 to 60 per cent, I started flipping pages, and I still can't give you any plot summary because, really, what's the plot of this? Is there one? I'd have to care more to flip to the end and see if, in retrospect, one had appeared along with a satisfying ending. Also, I only chuckled once in 50%, so that's not a comedy, to me.
I'm reading a craft-of-writing book right now about how story/plot is everything, which is imo true, and I think this writer needed to read that book. He has skills elsewhere, but zero skill in plotting, and yes, like that craft book explains, that's everything in a novel or movie. (Think of the movie Days of Heaven. Gorgeous music. Possibly the best cinematography ever--ah, those wheat fields! The locusts! But if Gere's character isn't on the run and there isn't that love affair and you don't care about all the four main characters, all the details of migrant workers' lives and the artistry of Almendros and Wexler would have been for naught. Indeed, the plot is so slow in that movie, it doesn't have as many fans as it might have otherwise.)
If you like all set-up and no pay-off, this is your book. If you want to read a truly funny historical western with good characters and a plot that makes you worry about those characters? Joe Lansdale, The Thicket.
This short novel is a western, historical, which brings together some Mormons, some Indians, a girl from the Carolinas, a teenage cowboy, a shady entrepreneur, and a Quaker family. This makes it sound like a great set-up to a joke, but there is very little humor in this novel. It is narrated mostly in first person, and the author does a good enough job as distinguishing the voices.
The bad: the plot promises to be, via a device that advertises an excursion, about a trip to some Mesa Verde-type cliff houses. In fact, every two chapters, the author gives you the ad again, or parts of it, to remind you of what's coming. But you hit the 50% mark and in fact no one has left on any excursion and nothing much has happened. You know how, as you're reading a book, you're supposed to be forming questions as you read that worry you and make you turn pages? There aren't many formed here, and the ones that exist are small. Is the blowing up the dead Chinese guy thing going to pay off a la Chekhov's gun? Is Granny going to speak a second time and does it matter? Is that frog important or not? Will Star really consider the Bishop's proposal to become his 7th wife? Probably not, you think, because those don't really relate to this excursion to the cliff dwellings, if that's what the novel is indeed supposed to be about. (And my tiny story questions may make this sound interesting, but honestly, it isn't. Those are straws I'm grasping at. There is no story question.)
So from 50 to 60 per cent, I started flipping pages, and I still can't give you any plot summary because, really, what's the plot of this? Is there one? I'd have to care more to flip to the end and see if, in retrospect, one had appeared along with a satisfying ending. Also, I only chuckled once in 50%, so that's not a comedy, to me.
I'm reading a craft-of-writing book right now about how story/plot is everything, which is imo true, and I think this writer needed to read that book. He has skills elsewhere, but zero skill in plotting, and yes, like that craft book explains, that's everything in a novel or movie. (Think of the movie Days of Heaven. Gorgeous music. Possibly the best cinematography ever--ah, those wheat fields! The locusts! But if Gere's character isn't on the run and there isn't that love affair and you don't care about all the four main characters, all the details of migrant workers' lives and the artistry of Almendros and Wexler would have been for naught. Indeed, the plot is so slow in that movie, it doesn't have as many fans as it might have otherwise.)
If you like all set-up and no pay-off, this is your book. If you want to read a truly funny historical western with good characters and a plot that makes you worry about those characters? Joe Lansdale, The Thicket.
October 8, 2012
This is a humorous novel of Quakers, Mormons, Indians, a bounty hunter and his red-eyed dog. The book is styled as a "written guidebook" of the Mesa Largo Tourist Expedition including the complete history of The Eagle City Shootout of 1892. Cleverly the tour we are about to embark takes place in 1905 so it treats the events of 1892 as history. Yet by telling the story only 13 years later allows a naivete that could not be pulled off if one had to speak in our own "modern day" voice. Maybe it's the old director in me, but as I read the book I envisioned a group of actors on a sparse stage with maybe a wagon wheel and a painted background, dressed in period clothing, taking turns as they each tell pieces of the story of the "actual events." Edgerton's skill is to set up a sentence so that it is entirely truthful to its owner, but when actually read or said aloud, it is hysterical. In this way he jabs at the idiosyncrasy of religion, the mortuary business, dog training and the tourism business.
Despite the humor, Edgerton is covering some serious territory. In 1857, 120 Arkansan emigrants heading for California were massacred in the the South West corner of Utah. The event became known as the Mountain Meadows Massacre. Although the Mormons tried to make it look like the Indians were to blame, this massacre was led and executed by the Mormons. Fortunately for the Mormons, this event missed the history books because of the Civil War. It's interesting technique to juxtapose such a startling event with this a light hearted setting. The second story line is nearly as upsetting as we follow the first expedition into the cliff dwellings in the Mesa Largo. The disregard for the artifacts and the desire to profit is not new news, but it sure gives a sense of helplessness as we watch the entrepreneur Blankenship scheme up the first American roadside attraction. Although, some of the scenes are really funny.
Despite the humor, Edgerton is covering some serious territory. In 1857, 120 Arkansan emigrants heading for California were massacred in the the South West corner of Utah. The event became known as the Mountain Meadows Massacre. Although the Mormons tried to make it look like the Indians were to blame, this massacre was led and executed by the Mormons. Fortunately for the Mormons, this event missed the history books because of the Civil War. It's interesting technique to juxtapose such a startling event with this a light hearted setting. The second story line is nearly as upsetting as we follow the first expedition into the cliff dwellings in the Mesa Largo. The disregard for the artifacts and the desire to profit is not new news, but it sure gives a sense of helplessness as we watch the entrepreneur Blankenship scheme up the first American roadside attraction. Although, some of the scenes are really funny.
October 14, 2021
Fun to read, fast paced
January 12, 2009
I think this was the only book that was assigned reading in high school that I remember enjoying. It also wasn't directly assigned, the teacher gave us a list of books or authors (don't remember) and since I didn't know any of them I showed my mom and she picked one.
It was pretty cool cause before that point I guess I really didn't know that i could really enjoy reading the same kinds of books as my mom (we still maintain very different tastes in books, but there is some overlap).
That said... I really don't remember a whole ton about this book, other than the converging plot lnies/characters and the dog, but i do remember liking it a lot!
It was pretty cool cause before that point I guess I really didn't know that i could really enjoy reading the same kinds of books as my mom (we still maintain very different tastes in books, but there is some overlap).
That said... I really don't remember a whole ton about this book, other than the converging plot lnies/characters and the dog, but i do remember liking it a lot!
January 31, 2017
Clyde Edgerton is definitely one of my favorite authors. He's got a deceptively straightforward style which makes an immediate impression of trueness on the surface but reveals further layers of meaning beneath. REDEYE is a departure for him since most of his stories are set in North Carolina but he's clearly at home here too. I loved the concept and structure of the book and the narrative passages are genius. Made me want to live in the world of its pages. (And I don't particularly like Westerns!) Felt like I was submerged in a much larger novel without the 300 extra pages. Bravo!
December 16, 2010
Entertaining read. Great use of multiple voices to tell an ever-revealing story. Unreliable narrators abound. Gets a bit slow in places, but is carried through by interesting and unique characterizations. Not at all a "typical" western, but worth reading if for no other reason (and there are other reasons) than to see a "literary" treatment of genre conventions in a way that honors the genre rather than rendering them (the conventions, not the genre) unreadably boring.
August 31, 2017
Well. I'm not sure what I just read. And I'm willing to bet a nickel that that is how a lot of people felt after they read In Memory of Junior, also by Clyde Edgerton, and I just loved that one. So, let's just say that while there was some really good writing in this, it didn't resonate with me story-wise. And move on.
September 24, 2007
This is set up like the reader is going on an expedition and in between gives the history of what previously occurred at the expedition site. Talks about the early days of mortuary science, mormon wars, and the early explorations of the cliff dwellings out in the desert--all with a humorous twist.
June 6, 2013
I've read virtually everything Clyde Edgerton has published, and Redeye is in the top 3. He nails the coupling of Faulknerian voicing coupled with dirt farm banter. My favorite chapter is writtten in Redeye's own words...
September 13, 2013
This was the very first Clyde Edgerton book I ever read. I don't know how I made it all the way through - I laughed until I hurt. I still laugh when I think about the Chinaman! If I could give this book ten stars, I would.
September 27, 2021
Really liked Walking Across Egypt, so I thought I'd give this a try. It has archaeology in it, and Indians and Mormons. Nothing really really bad happens in an Edgerton novel, but the reader is warned ahead that there will be some violence. After all, it's the wild West. The Mormons don't come off quite as bad as in Riders of the Purple Sage, but that's not saying much. There is humor in the mad capitalist, Billy Blankenship, who just can't help coming up with crazy promotions for businesses. There's a love story and vengeance. And there are occasional profundities, like when Bumpy questions Hiram about his beliefs.
April 26, 2019
Edgerton spins a western concerning some real life events in the Mormon settling of the west. It is not very flattering to the group. This books bring together disparate people seeking control of Indian cave. The Mormons who see it as a settlement of one on the lost tribes of Israel. An entrepreneur sees it as a great tourist destination. About the landscape is a mean dog and a mysterious bounty hunter. Laden with the humor of Edgerton it is an interesting unsanitized look at the settlement of the old West.
November 26, 2020
What a quirky little book. Set in the late 1800s and based around some historical events, such as massacre by Mormons on a wagon train near Salt Lake City, author Clyde Edgerton weaves a tale of characters around the Mesa Largo and newly discovered Native American Cliff Dwellings. While the characters are oddly noteworthy, the setting is the greatest character in this story. Set in southern Colorado, events unfold...
To be fair 2 1/2 stars would be more fair. Just didn't move me to 3 stars.
To be fair 2 1/2 stars would be more fair. Just didn't move me to 3 stars.
December 12, 2021
I liked how the story unraveled and the different voices, but reduced stars for the slow quiet slog peppered with random absurd violence/random titillation that didn't really seem to match the (slow) flow of the rest of the story. I kept dropping this one to read something else, and then would pick it back up a month later in the hopes that it would get more exciting or I'd get a little more depth of character. Maybe pseudo-westerns are just not my genre.
November 25, 2020
Short read, funny. Not as good as Walking Across Egypt, but WHAT a cast of characters!! Crazy bounty hunter and his dog, cowboys, a couple of Indians, a Mormon Bishop, a Quaker anthropologist, a PT Barnum type trying to open the Anasazi cliff ruins to tourists, and an entrepreneur trying to be the first in town to embalm his clients (because those kept on ice sometime explode...)
August 26, 2021
This is supposed to be Western Humor. I checked this out online from the library. But it really wasn't funny. So that's a strike against it, but maybe it was classified poorly. Or it's British humor. I don't find those shows funny either.
The story was interesting enough, but always in the first person from a different character. Redeye is the name of an attack dog trained by a bounty hunter, and maybe the best (funniest) part of the book is hearing his first person perspective.
The story was interesting enough, but always in the first person from a different character. Redeye is the name of an attack dog trained by a bounty hunter, and maybe the best (funniest) part of the book is hearing his first person perspective.
August 31, 2021
It sort of took me a bit to get my teeth into this one, but it was well worth the gnawing. Part true story, part history, part fiction - well drawn characters, including the horses and dog. An intertwined plot of characters. Perked my curiosity about the Mountain Meadows Massacre near Lee Vinning in 1877. Well-written and wholly satisfactory.
October 2, 2022
3.5 stars
I had no idea what to expect when I picked this book up. It turned out to be a fairly entertaining story, and I’m always down to read about the harms of religious extremists, especially set in Colorado!
I had no idea what to expect when I picked this book up. It turned out to be a fairly entertaining story, and I’m always down to read about the harms of religious extremists, especially set in Colorado!
July 1, 2017
It would take real effort and skill to make this story horrendously boring. Unluckily for us, Mr. Edgerton has that skill, and made that effort.
February 6, 2018
Fluffy Fun Creative Novel
The author creates a cadre of unusual and often humorous characters joined in a little mystery and surprising intrigue. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
The author creates a cadre of unusual and often humorous characters joined in a little mystery and surprising intrigue. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
November 24, 2020
Fun and strange little book from a UNCW professor!
February 12, 2021
I think this was Edgerton's only Western. Not my favorite book of his.
March 31, 2021
Fun, rollicking tale of the southwest in the 1890's.
April 4, 2021
Some parts 3 stars, but some lines and passages easily 5+. A genius of voicing disparate characters.
September 1, 2025
Not very funny for a comedy book
May 31, 2024
Edgerton tells a wonderfully unique tale of the Wild West; home to the bold, the wild, and the outright weird cast of characters with clear and enthralling individual voices. It is a tale of the West like no other. A fairly short read, but a terrific page-turner nonetheless.
June 26, 2008
I am not really a fan of westerns, but I was browsing the mystery section in the library and fortuitously came across this book, which was mis-shelved (M, W, they are close enough, aren't they?). It takes place in one of my favorite parts of the world, southwestern Colorado. The novel has a little bit of everything: history, archeology, romance, humor, economics, technology, medicine. Despite the fact that the catalyst of the book's events is the horrific Mountain Meadows massacre, the book manages to be light-hearted in tone without making light of that tragedy. It builds slowly through the viewpoints of several different and disparate characters to a mostly satisfying conclusion. Very enjoyable.
March 14, 2012
This is the first of Clyde Edgerton's novels that I have read. I must admit...I really enjoyed it. It is presented to readers as a pamphlet explaining a trip that the reader is embarking on.
He introduces a cast of characters through some of their own journal entries. These characters all took, at a point in the novel, the same trip the reader is about to take.
On their trip, a first embarking on it, there is a tragedy that is hinted at; a shoot-out. The novel leads to this moment, and doesn't fail to entertain along the way.
Edgerton's cast is varied, and well-realized. As a western novel, most of them are quite colorful! The place they live, a western front in Colorado, is just as colorful!
I greatly enjoyed this funny western jaunt, and will see what else Edgerton has written.
He introduces a cast of characters through some of their own journal entries. These characters all took, at a point in the novel, the same trip the reader is about to take.
On their trip, a first embarking on it, there is a tragedy that is hinted at; a shoot-out. The novel leads to this moment, and doesn't fail to entertain along the way.
Edgerton's cast is varied, and well-realized. As a western novel, most of them are quite colorful! The place they live, a western front in Colorado, is just as colorful!
I greatly enjoyed this funny western jaunt, and will see what else Edgerton has written.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 44 reviews