Blue Awesome Ascending : A Novel

ISBN-13: 9781572336292 / Angielski / Twarda / 2008

Hubert Whitlow

Opis

Pearl Harbor has just been bombed, and thirteen-year old Blue Awesome Easterly yearns to grow up fast, join the Army Air Corps, and become a hero. But one-eyed Aunt Spook warns him: Beware the light She knows, because the swamp people told me while I was in a trance, that Blue Awesome is fated to see events from the past-revealed in flashes of light only he can see. This light never dies, cautions Aunt Spook. And it never forgets what it sees.
Blue Awesome's parents operate their funeral parlor/telephone business out of their home, Welcome Hall, in deep south Home Free, a small village not far from Swamp Ha-Ha, an area as rural as raw peanuts. Blue Awesome's mother, Ethyl, more or less runs the businesses by herself because his father, Poordaddy, teaches in his private, tuition-free Classic Academy for Young Men. The Easterlys are getting by fine until the commander of the new Army base asks them to secretly embalm a murdered African American officer. When word gets out, local vigilantes turn their world upside down. But that's just the half of it.
Take a pinch of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, a dollop of Riddley Walker, a touch of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, a smidgen of William Kotzwinkle-blend thoroughly, bake at high heat (swamp temperature would be best) and you have this entirely new confection, Blue Awesome Ascending. Prepare for a feast."