Walking Across Egypt

Mattie took some pound cake and apple pie and visited Wesley at the Young Men's Rehabilitation Centre. She was persistently telling people that the Bible said, 'when you've done something for the least of these my brethren you've done something for Jesus.' With his stringy blond hair and rotten teeth, Wesley didn't look much like Jesus, or talk like him. But it beat sitting at home watching soap operas, hoping nothing terminal would happen before the dishes were washed. Mattie's selfish children and interfering neighbours are appalled by their singular relationship; she was after all seventy-eight and Wesley Benfield an illegitimate adolescent, not to say a delinquent. But then Mattie Rigsbee always had been very independent. In this wonderfully funny novel, Clyde Edgerton takes us inside the house and hearts of a peculiarly endearing group of people living in North Carolina. His characterisations are hilarious and razor sharp, drawn into a world that lives far beyond the printed page.