Edgar and Lucy

by Victor Lodato

Overview

"On every page Lodato's prose sings with a robust, openhearted wit, making Edgar & Lucy a delight to read...Lodato keeps us in his thrall because his grip on the tiller stays reassuringly firm. Not to mention the supporting cast he's gathered, a group so eclectic and beguiling that many of them could carry an entire novel of their own. A riveting and exuberant ride." - Cynthia D'Aprix-Sweeney, The New York Times Book Review

"Wonder-filled and magisterial...Lodato's skill as a poet manifests itself on every page, delighting with such elegant similes and incisive descriptions…His skill as a playwright shines in every piece of dialogue…And his skill as a fiction writer displays itself in his virtuoso command of point of view. The book pushes the boundaries of beauty." - Chicago Tribune

"Edgar isn't like other boys and Lucy isn't like other moms, but grandma Florence keeps them tied to reality. And then their lives take a sharp turn...This otherworldly tale will haunt you." - People Magazine

"A stunningly rendered novel" - Entertainment Weekly

"A quirky coming-of-age novel that deepens into something dark and strange without losing its heart or its sense of wonder." —Tom Perrotta, bestselling author of The Leftovers

Edgar and Lucy is a page-turning literary masterpiece, a stunning examination of family love and betrayal.
Eight-year-old Edgar Fini remembers nothing of the accident people still whisper about. He only knows that his father is gone, his mother has a limp, and his grandmother believes in ghosts. When Edgar meets a man with his own tragic story, the boy begins a journey into a secret wilderness where nothing is clear, not even the line between the living and the dead. In order to save her son, Lucy has no choice but to confront the demons of her past.

Profound, shocking, and beautiful, Edgar and Lucy is a thrilling adventure and the unlikeliest of love stories.
"This tale gradually exerts a fiendish grip on the reader." —Helen Simonson, author of Major Pettigrew's Last Stand

"I tore through the luminous pages of Edgar and Lucy as if possessed…What this book has to say about love and truth will stay with me for a very, very long time." —Sophie McManus, author of The Unfortunates

"I love this book. Profoundly spiritual and hilariously specific...an unusual and intimate epic that manages to capture the wonder and terror of both child and parenthood with an uncanny clarity." —Lena Dunham, bestselling author of Not That Kind of Girl

"Victor Lodato may be our bard of the sadness, humor, and confusion of loss. He senses the absurdities and elation of mourning and childhood with a capacious precision that brings to mind J.D. Salinger, Lorrie Moore, Karen Russell, even James Joyce. Edgar and Lucy will make you feel things you haven't felt in ages." —Daniel Torday, author of The Last Flight of Poxl West

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250097002
Publisher:	St. Martin's Publishing Group
Publication date:	03/26/2024
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	544
Sales rank:	362,255
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

VICTOR LODATO is a playwright and novelist. His book, Mathilda Savitch was deemed a “Best Book of the Year” by The Christian Science Monitor, Booklist, and The Globe and Mail. The novel won the PEN USA Award for Fiction and the Barnes & Noble Discover Prize, and has been published in sixteen countries. His short fiction and essays have been published in The New Yorker, The New York Times, and Best American Short Stories. He lives in Ashland, Oregon and Tucson, Arizona.

Table of Contents

Contents

Title Page,
Copyright Notice,
Dedication,
Epigraph,
Book One: The Age of Florence,
1. Chanel No 5,
2. Two Wineglasses and a Banana,
3. Beards,
4. Best in NJ,
5. Fat and Skinny,
6. Pinocchio,
7. Francesco,
8. The Man in the Closet,
9. Boo-Boo Bag,
10. Saint Christopher,
11. Vesuvius,
Book Two: Time Regained,
12. L.O.V.E.,
13. Honey,
14. Flow-Rinse,
15. Save for Later,
16. In the Car,
17. Percocet-Demi,
18. [strikethough]Tuesday[end strikethough],
19. Tuesday,
20. Kev,
21. Superslut,
22. Salvashon,
Book Three: The Last Day of Francesco Lorenzo Fini,
23. Ten Minutes,
24. Shepherd's Junction,
Book Four: Betrayal,
25. Holes,
26. Egg,
27. Harvest,
28. Biggleberry Island,
Book Five: The Pine Barrens,
29. The Seventh Day,
30. Extra Credit,
31. Goodbye, Toni-Ann,
32. The Pine Barrens,
33. Soon New Addition to Your Family!,
Book Six: Nine Months,
34. Withdrawal,
35. Jack,
36. Signs and Symbols,
37. The Waiter,
38. The Headless Woman,
39. Consolidated Laundry,
40. A Hunting Accident,
41. First Wednesday of December,
42. The Holiday Season,
43. Everyone's Guilty,
44. Liars,
45. The Devil,
46. Alpha Orionis,
47. Tomb,
48. In Flanders Fields,
49. Maria di Mariangela,
50. Homecoming,
51. The Shell,
52. Pilgrims,
53. The Goofers,
54. The Farm,
55. The Golden Rectangle,
56. Expecting,
57. The White Child,
58. The Shed,
59. Confession,
60. Spring,
61. Carnation,
62. The Bridge,
63. Laughter,
64. Madwoman,
65. Star of Bethlehem,
66. Keep It Clean,
67. Seven Bridges,
68. Rest,
69. Beauty,
70. The Fish,
71. The Clearing,
72. Chicks,
Book Seven: Home,
73. Time,
74. Tree of the Year,
75. Blue Music,
Mirrorland,
Acknowledgments,
Also by Victor Lodato,
About the Author,
Copyright,

Reading Group Guide

Discussion Questions

1. The author considers this book “a love story.” Would you agree? If so, what are the various love stories represented? How would you define each of them? As triumphs or tragedies?
2. Look at the epigraphs throughout the book. Read them again and discuss how they relate to that particular part of the novel.
3. Think about Edgar’s relationships with the two women in his life. Does his extremely close bond to his grandmother Florence seem healthy, or problematic? As for Lucy: What do you think of her as a mother? Is she doing the best she can? Do you feel differently about her by the end of the book?
4. Think about the element of grief in this book. How does it affect the characters’ lives? How does it affect their decisions—and, ultimately, their fates?
5. Consider Edgar’s relationship with Conrad. What did you think, at first? Did your feelings change by the end of the book?
6. (SPOILER ALERT) Does Edgar run away from home, or is he kidnapped?
7. The author has referred to this book as “a New Jersey gothic.” Would you agree? If so, discuss the gothic elements in the novel. For instance: Do the characters have a complicated relationship to the past? Is there a sense of the past as a malignant influence? Do you think the dilapidated Fini house at 21 Cressida Drive or the cabin in the Pine Barrens could serve as updated version of the haunted or ruined castle of gothic literature?
8. Think about Lucy and Frank’s romance. Why do you think they were so drawn to each other? What is your opinion of Frank? What is his illness, exactly?
9. (Spoiler Alert) What do you think of Edgar’s decision to return to the Pine Barrens? Why does he do it? How is he different when he’s finally reunited with his family.
10. How do you think the moments of comedy add to the storytelling?

11. (SPOILER ALERT) Discuss the reunion between Edgar and Lucy at the end of the novel. Why do they not go to each other immediately at the police station? What do they communicate to each other without words?
12. Consider Edgar’s personality: his shyness; his odd habits, such as hiding in tight spaces; his propensity for magical thinking. Do you think the doctor who suggests he might be “borderline autistic” is correct—or do you think something else is going on?
13. Discuss Edgar’s albinism. How does it affect his character? And what do you think is going on when his skin changes color after the fire—and then becomes white again at the end of the story?
14. Why do you think Conrad risks the closed world he’s built with Edgar to take him out to the café for pie?
15. How much sympathy (or lack thereof) do you have for Conrad?
16. Who really rescues Edgar from the fire—Conrad or Florence?
Discuss the spiritual aspects of the book, including the idea of afterlife and/or limbo. Is the medium, Maria di Mariangela, fake or real? What about Florence’s ghost?
17. Why do you think the narration changes from third to first person toward the end? Who is really telling this story?
18. Think of all the secondary characters, such as Henry and Netty Schlip, Honey Fasinga, Thomas Pittimore, Jarell Lester, Jimmy Papadakis. What does Edgar’s disappearance mean to them? Does it reflect things from their own lives, their own sadnesses and longings? What is each person really looking for?
19. The author was born and raised in New Jersey. What did you think of his portrayal of the state and its inhabitants? Did you know much about the Pine Barrens before reading the book? Did you know the myth of the Jersey Devil?
20. Throughout the book, there are numerous descriptions of tunnels and water: Pio in the Lincoln Tunnel, the tunnels and aquifers under the Pine Barrens, Frank’s submerged car below Shepherd’s junction, even the waters of Consolidated Laundry where Florence worked. What do these waters and tunnels signify?
21. Did Edgar have three fathers: Frank, Conrad, and the butcher? Or no father?
22. Discuss the unfinished carving on the tree: Edgar loves... What is the meaning of this unfinished epitaph?

Editorial Reviews

[Lodato's] captivating debut novel, Mathilda Savitch, featured the 13-year-old heroine of the title as its fierce, brokenhearted narrator. In Edgar and Lucy, he switches things up a bit. Grief is still the heart of the matter here, but Lodato is working in a broader register that includes other, mostly adult, points of view. Still, he repeats the impressive trick of creating a character so peculiar, vivid and appealing (think of Owen Meany minus the messianic complex) that Edgar becomes this ambitious novel's enduring reward…On every page, Lodato's prose sings with a robust, openhearted wit, making Edgar and Lucy a delight to read…What makes this disquieting exploration of love and mourning bearable is that Lodato works from a place of compassion. Even in the darkest moments, when his characters are being their worst selves, Lodato bathes them in tenderness and understanding.

The New York Times Book Review - Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney

01/30/2017
The sprawling second novel by the author of Mathilda Savitch zooms in on its two title characters to the near-exclusion of everything else. Edgar is eight when the novel opens. Albino and borderline autistic, he’s having a hard time making it in urban New Jersey, and he finds himself tempted to take the protection offered by a mysterious bearded middle-aged man who is often found patrolling his neighborhood in a pickup truck. Edgar’s widowed mother, Lucy, does her best to care for him, but she’s still haunted by her dead husband and chafing under the household rule of her stern Italian mother-in-law, with whom she and Edgar live. The novel has the plot of a much briefer book, and, while some readers may revel in its rich description, others will find it self-indulgent. Secondary characters come across as more quirky than credible, and the introduction of the point of view of a ghostly character disrupts the flow of the narrative. Scenes set in the deserted woods of the New Jersey Pine Barrens have an eerie power, as do flashbacks to the early years of Lucy’s marriage. While the plot is suspenseful enough to keep the pages turning, Lovado blunts the edges of difficult subjects such as suicide and child endangerment, making for an emotionally easier story. 125,000-copy announced first printing. Agent: Bill Clegg, the Clegg Agency. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

"On every page Lodato's prose sings with a robust, openhearted wit, making Edgar & Lucy a delight to read...Lodato keeps us in his thrall because his grip on the tiller stays reassuringly firm. Not to mention the supporting cast he's gathered, a group so eclectic and beguiling that many of them could carry an entire novel of their own. A riveting and exuberant ride." - Cynthia D'Aprix-Sweeney, The New York Times Book Review

"Wonder-filled and magisterial...Lodato's skill as a poet manifests itself on every page, delighting with such elegant similes and incisive descriptions…His skill as a playwright shines in every piece of dialogue…And his skill as a fiction writer displays itself in his virtuoso command of point of view. The book pushes the boundaries of beauty." - Chicago Tribune

"Edgar isn't like other boys and Lucy isn't like other moms, but grandma Florence keeps them tied to reality. And then their lives take a sharp turn...This otherworldly tale will haunt you." - People Magazine

"A stunningly rendered novel" - Entertainment Weekly

"I love this book. At once profoundly spiritual and hilariously specific, Victor Lodato's Edgar and Lucy is an unusual and intimate epic that manages to capture the wonder and terror of both child and parenthood with an uncanny clarity. The surprising prose is a pleasure, and never ceases to remind us how fragile human life is yet how unshakeable the bonds. Edgar and Lucy will have you reading til 4am, then reaching for the closest warm body." – Lena Dunham, bestselling author of Not That Kind of Girl

"This tale gradually exerts a fiendish grip on the reader"—Helen Simonson, author of Major Pettigrew's Last Stand

"I tore through the luminous pages of Edgar and Lucy as if possessed. Edgar’s journey from boy to man is that rare tale that’s both epic and intimate, as joyful and startlingly original in its language as it is a pleasure to read. The tender, funny, living immediacy of its characters and what is revealed to us about human nature through their twists of fate took my breath away. What this book has to say about love and truth will stay with me for a very, very long time." - Sophie McManus, author of The Unfortunates

"Edgar and Lucy is a quirky coming-of-age novel that deepens into something dark and strange without losing its heart or its sense of wonder. Victor Lodato writes with lyrical precision and unfailing compassion for his characters." - Tom Perrotta, bestselling author of The Leftovers

"Victor Lodato may be our bard of the sadness, humor, and confusion of loss. He senses the absurdities and elation of mourning and childhood with a capacious precision that brings to mind J.D. Salinger, Lorrie Moore, Karen Russell, even James Joyce. Edgar and Lucy will make you feel things you haven't felt in ages. Go read it right now." - Daniel Torday, author of The Last Flight of Poxl West

"Victor Lodato’s work is complex, elegant, disturbing, beautifully written, and, above all, important. I can say without hesitation that he is a writer who gives me hope for the future of serious literature." - Lynn Freed, author ofThe Servants’ Quarters

Praise for Mathilda Savitch:

A phenomenal debut…Lodato indelibly captures the fragile vulnerability and fearless bravado of adolescence through Mathilda's impeccable voice, one that rages with alienation, frustration, and confusion as much as it aches with hope, wonder, and desire. – Booklist (starred review)

“Compulsively readable…Both mature adolescents and adult readers will find much to love in Lodato’s remarkable creation.” – Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"From page one, the outrageous, pitch-perfect voice of this book grabs you up and won't let go. A bravura Performance." - Mary Kaar, author of The Liars Club

"Engaging and humorous yet grappling with serious issues." – Library Journal (starred review)

From the Publisher

★ 12/01/2016
Lucy and her son, Edgar, have lived in New Jersey with her mother-in-law since her husband killed himself. Lucy is not a responsible mother, but Florence takes care of Edgar, a strangely intelligent, hypersensitive eight-year-old. When Florence suddenly dies, things fall apart, and Edgar is rather willingly kidnapped by a mysterious man who has been lurking around the area. He takes Edgar to a remote cabin in the Pine Barrens of southern New Jersey, while a frantic Lucy and the local police launch an inept missing-person investigation. As months go by, Lucy tries to carry on with her life, while Edgar negotiates his way through the strange new place he has arrived at with his kidnapper, who is now acting like a surrogate father and seems to have some mission for Edgar to fulfill. VERDICT Flirting with danger on many fronts, this second novel from the author of the award-winning Mathilda Savitch is perceptive, compassionate, and humorous, drawing readers into the lives of these quirky yet recognizable and sympathetic characters. [See Prepub Alert, 9/19/16.]—James Coan, SUNY at Oneonta Lib.

Library Journal

Victor Lodato's unique novel features a cast of vividly drawn characters who are dealing with love and loss. It’s utterly absorbing, with evocative, lyrical writing that is rendered beautifully in the author's narration of his own work. Centered around Edgar, a quiet albino boy who is abducted by a grief-stricken man, Lodato's novel includes vivid descriptions of the child's family members, neighbors, and other people with whom he comes into contact. The listener gets inside the minds of the characters and clearly visualizes the settings and events that take place. Lodato's narration evokes sympathy, drawing the listener in while maintaining the suspense that keeps the story moving forward in such an original manner. S.E.G. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine

JULY 2017 - AudioFile

2016-12-19
The life of a young albino boy in suburban New Jersey is permanently marked by two tragedies, neither of his making.Playwright and novelist Lodato's debut novel (Mathilda Savitch, 2009) was a sublime coming-of-age story about a young girl. In his ambitious but less focused follow-up, the author switches genders to focus on the life-changing events that shape an 8-year-old boy. It's a dark mirror of Lodato's debut, filled with menace and grief that takes no less than seven weighty passages to play out. The child is Edgar Allan Fini, who has "pale skin, white hair, tired eyes a sea-glass shade of green." To his mother, Lucy, an alcoholic hair stylist, he's "her funny little albino fruitcake." But as Lodato starts building out Lucy and Edgar's world with meticulous detail, he's also lacing the tale with ill intent. First there is the matter of Frank Fini, Edgar's manic-depressive father, who committed suicide by plunging his car off a cliff, nearly taking Lucy with him. There's Edgar's grandmother Florence, who wields such influence over the boy that she continues to muse over his fate even after her death. We have the butcher with whom Lucy is sleeping, who accidentally severs Edgar's finger. Lucy herself is still shattered by Frank's death, to the degree that she tells her lover "please don't be happy" when she finds herself pregnant. It's a dark tale told in stolen moments and silent reflections, and it gets darker as time passes. The final half of the book depicts the strange relationship between Edgar and a man named Conrad who committed a terrible trespass against his own son. These characters hurtle toward a climax that begins to defy plausibility—the author ties things up with a jarring change in voice at the end—but readers who make it that far are apt to be enraptured already. A domestic fable about grief and redemption likely to leave readers emotionally threadbare.

Kirkus Reviews