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Book Reviewed by:A new literary novel from Weissberg Award winning playwright and PEN USA Award for Fiction winning writer Victor Lodato, Edgar and Lucy is a masterfully written story of a broken family struggling to stay together.
Eight-year-old Edgar Fini's loyalty is torn between the two women in his life. There's his mother, Lucy, who, though she has moments where she loves him, mostly disappears at night with her various "suitors." And then there's his grandmother, Florence, who dotes on him to the point where she is at a loss when he isn't around. Since his father's suicide, Florence and Edgar's relationship has become obsessive, each fully dependent on the other. When Florence suddenly dies, Lucy is thrown into the role of main caretaker and doesn't know how to handle her new job. But as Edgar and Lucy adjust, they must also deal with Ron, a local butcher who wants to court Lucy, and Conrad, an unsettlingly attentive adult whose intentions are at one more sinister and more innocent than Edgar could ever know.
After Conrad separates Edgar from his mother, the man and the boy form a home life of two, isolated deep in the New Jersey Pine Barrens, an arrangement that is not at all one-sided, even as Lucy, their hometown, and as time goes on, a wider world hunts for the boy.
Edgar and Lucy is a deeply moving book and one that I highly recommend for anyone. It would be an especially good book for book clubs as there are so many potential areas of discussion. (Vicki C). The book presents multiple views of deep topics such as death, grief, depression, love, loss, family and abduction. (Kay D). I was fascinated by this book and can visualize an in-depth discussion by book club members (Doris K). This book has everything for the reader of tales: Off kilter characters; family drama; multiple viewpoints; and beautiful readable language. Highly recommended (Maggie R). If you enjoy character-driven stories illustrated with luminous prose, you will enjoy Edgar and Lucy. (Elizabeth K)...continued
Full Review
(1267 words)
(Reviewed by First Impressions Reviewers).
In Edgar and Lucy, author Victor Lodato often uses the symbolism of stars, especially Betelgeuse.
Betelgeuse is a star in the Orion constellation, one of the most easily recognized groups of stars in the night sky. Orion's Belt consists of of three stars (also known as the Three Kings or the Three Sisters). Betelgeuse, officially termed Alpha Orionis is visible above and to the left of Orion's Belt, marking the hunter's shoulder, and is the second brightest object present in the grouping after Rigel. In other cultures the star is associated with the leg of a running stag (ancient India), the leg of a cayman or turtle (Brazil); part of a ceremonial drum (Japan), or one of four vultures about to devour a criminal (Peru).
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These Blue Mountains by Sarah Loudin Thomas
"[An] atmospheric tale of unexpected hope." —Lisa Wingate, New York Times bestselling author
Dan Torday, author of The Last Flight of Poxl West
Victor Lodato may be our bard of the sadness, humor, and confusion of loss. He senses the absurdities and elation of mourning and childhood with a capacious precision that brings to mind J.D. Salinger, Lorrie Moore, Karen Russell, even James Joyce. Edgar and Lucy will make you feel things you haven't felt in ages. Go read it right now.
