Blue Calhoun: A Novel
Having survived several drunken years that nearly wrecked his marriage, Bluford Calhoun has finally settled peacefully into early middle age. He's sober now, and he's got a respectable job as a salesman at the Atkinson Music Company in 1950s Raleigh, North Carolina. Then an old classmate from the wrong side of the tracks walks into the store with her luminous, dark-haired daughter in tow, and Blue's life is changed forever. The enduring passion that young Luna Absher ignites in Blue forces him into moral quandary; ever the Southern gentleman, deeply rooted in the precepts of his time and place, he has to work hard to convince himself--and his elegant mother, Miss Ashlyn--that his wife and daughter have the strength to withstand his defection. Ultimately, Blue's defection is different from what one would expect, and though brief, its implications extend all the way to the granddaughter Blue must eventually wrest from her widowed father. Price is in top form here, forcing us to wrestle with Blue even as he wrestles with himself, portraying his anguish in painfully clear, clean prose that captures perfectly the rhythms of the South and of the human heart. Highly recommended. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 1/92; an interview with Price appears on p. 123.-Barbara Hoffert, "Library Journal"Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.