Title: The Miracle Life of Edgar MintAuthor: Brady Udall
After reading The Lonely Polygamist, I was eager to get my hands on another Brady Udall novel (immediately after finishing the novel, I listened to everything he's done on This American Life, which was pretty fun too). Once again, Udall didn't disappoint with the story of Edgar Mint, a half-breed Apache whose alcoholic mother didn't want him, and who was run over by a mail truck at age seven. Udall spins the miraculous story of Edgar's survival, his rehabilitation in an Arizona hospital (where he befriended a creepy doctor and an old man who stayed in Edgar's life, for good or for ill, long after the hospital stay ended), his sojourn in a boarding school for American Kids right out of Charles Dickens, and his eventual meet-up with the Mormon missionaries, who have him placed in the Lamanite Relocation Program living with a family outside of Cedar City.
Throughout the novel, Edgar wonders for what purpose his life has been spared. He feels that there must have been a greater purpose for him to survive a skull-crushing injury, but as a modern-day (or at least 1970s-era) Oliver Twist, Edgar finds frustrating situations and unsavory characters (including the doctor who saved him) wherever he turns. In some ways, characters in the novel (like Dr. Barry and the school principal) seem to be types, drawn with larger-than-life strokes, but he gets the Madsen family right-- they're complicated and conflicted, and not Mormon stereotypes. The doctor the Madsens take Edgar to see after he develops tendinitis from too much "self-love" is also hilarious. I love that Udall doesn't shy away from giving us a happy ending either-- after such a hard first sixteen years, it's delightful to see Edgar get away from all of the dysfunction in his life and find the miracle he's been spared to live.
1 comment:
I read this year's ago - now I have to find the copy again because I can't remember the happy ending.
Post a Comment