Female characters of novelist Clyde Edgerton

Edgerton's ability to write women characters has been praised by critics and readers, and Edgerton himself has noted his view of why this is so:

I've been very satisfied to know that women who read the book believe that the voice sounds authentic. In our inner lives there are perhaps fewer differences between men and women than we sometimes think. . . growing up with women, listening to stories more or less subconsciously, contributed by my writing from a woman's point of view. I do not find it difficult (Robbins 61).

Edgerton has also cited as his literary inspiration Eudora Welty, another woman whose voice he respected:

The tone of her voice and the gentle, thorough humor in the story ["Why I Love at the P.O." by Eudora Welty] combined in a way that motivated me. People in Eudora Welty and Flannery O'Connor were people I know (Miller 35).

Edgerton's first novel, Raney, featured the sort of woman he would cope with in many of his works, and he had first created the character in two

. . .
nues to fight for his soul: Dear God, guide me to do Thy will. Direct my thoughts in ways pleasing to Thee. Help me to know what to say. Wesley tries to sense God up there through the trees passing over his head, way up there somewhere in the dark blue and yellow sky where some stars are already appearing (Edgerton, Killer Diller 59). There are other female characters in the novel who also take an interest in Wesley. Sanita and Phoebe are students, and they show contrasts in their attitudes and degree of contemporary thought and behavior. Edgerton addresses issues of sex and show that the women he depicts are often more traditional than the men: She [Phoebe] wonders whether she, unmarried, should ever become totally intimate with him here at the lake no no of course not, whether she should maybe drink a lot of wine so she could be saved from deciding no of course not. Her daddy is still alive, the lights of right and wrong still shine in her life (Edgerton, Killer Diller 163). Kenn Robbins finds that this novel fails in several respects, notably because it lacks "new and inventive incidents to hold our interest" and "a riveting story" such as were seen in the earlier novels (Robbins 67). Perhaps the shift to teen-ag
. . .

Some common words found in the essay are:
Bram Stoker, Walking Egypt, Clyde Edgerton, Floatplane Notebooks, Killer Diller, Weekly January, Baptist Charles, Mattie Raney, Methodist BA, Albert Thatcher, walking egypt, killer diller, clyde edgerton, southern quarterly, floatplane notebooks, edgerton clyde, southern quarterly fall, eudora welty, quarterly fall, fall 1991, york ballantine, quarterly fall 1991, kenn conversation clyde, robbins kenn conversation, conversation clyde edgerton,
Approximate Word count = 3402
Approximate Pages = 14 (250 words per page)

More Essays on Female characters of novelist Clyde Edgerton