Redeye

This New York Times Notable Book is a quirky tale of the Old West from the author of The Bible Salesman, “a master of comic timing” (Richmond Times-Dispatch). “A Hollywood pitchman might call Redeye Eudora Welty meets Mark Twain,” says the New York Times Book Review about Clyde Edgerton’s “small gem of a novel,” a witty adventure set on the nineteenth-century frontier. “A rollicking tale . . . The cliff dwellings of southwest Colorado attract a motley crew of explorers in 1892, each with a personal agenda. Abel Merriwether, a local rancher and amateur archaeologist, wants to explore and protect the site; Andrew Collier, an Englishman, wants to write about it; Billy Blankenship, a local businessman, wants to develop it for tourism; Bishop Thorpe, a Mormon saint, hopes to find proof that Jesus visited there 2000 years before; and Cobb Pittman, a drifter with a red-eyed dog, seeks revenge on Thorpe for the Mountain Meadows Massacre of 1875. How this diverse bunch converges for an ill-fated tour of the site is unforgettable. A master storyteller, Edgerton proves that he is in full command of his craft no matter what the setting.” —Library Journal