Lightning Song - Softcover

Description

Leroy Dearman is twelve, and he lives on a llama farm in Mississippi. Life is perfect. It's true that his grandfather just died in the attic and that wild dogs kill a baby llama now and then, and it's true that one little sister curses him and the other one wets her pants. But up to the day Uncle Harris moves in, life looks like it's right out of a Walt Disney movie. No wonder the llamas greet each morning with a song. Uncle Harris arrives in a sports car, full of funny stories and new ideas. He manages to persuade Leroy's straitlaced parents to join him for cocktails in the evening. He sets up a pretty grand bachelor pad in the Dearman attic, with a telephone, a TV set, and a stack of Playboy magazines. He is, you might say, Romance itself. Once Uncle Harris moves in, life on the llama farm takes on an entirely different flavor. Leroy discovers those magazines. Electricity fills the Dearman house. Equilibrium tilts, conversation trails off, the atmospheric pressure twists--and lightning strikes. Leroy starts seeing things he's never seen before, like the very gifted baton-twirling teacher, and his world changes forever. Not since PORTNOY'S COMPLAINT has a novel looked so directly, hilariously, and bittersweetly at the heartbreak of puberty.

From the Back Cover Copy

"Portnoy's Complaint set on a llama farm in Mississippi." -- Self magazine

"I must confess--reviewers have hearts, too--that I love this boy. I also love the excesses of this novel's language; I love the lightning striking at regular intervals; I love the llamas singing in the fields beyond the house where Leroy lies in bed, pondering the mysteries of growing up. I love the novel's shifting tone, sardonic when that's required and tender when only tenderness will do." -- The New York Times Book Review

"If you call yourself a serious reader but still haven't discovered Lewis Nordan, shame on you." -- The Seattle Times

"Reading him is a challenge, a pleasure, and an experience that will leave you looking for his earlier books in an effort to do it all over again." -- Richmond Times-Dispatch

"Unforgettable." -- The Bloomsbury Review "Side-splitting." -- Booklist "A potent novel." -- GQ

Lightning Song is a hilarious, high-risk fiction that walks the wire between vision and vertigo.

Leroy Dearman is twelve, and he lives on a llama farm in Mississippi when Uncle Harris arrives in a sports car, full of new ideas. He sets up a pretty grand bachelor pad in the attic, with a telephone, a TV set, and a stack of Playboy magazines. He is, you might say, Romance itself.

And life on the llama farm takes on an entirely different flavor. Electricity fills the house. Equilibrium tilts, lightning strikes, and Leroy finds himself kissing his innocence good-bye.

Author Biography

Lewis Nordan is the author of three collections of short stories and four novels, Music of the Swamp, Wolf Whistle, The Sharpshooter Blues, and Lightning Song. His prizes include the Southern Book Critics Circle Award for fiction and three American Library Association Notable Book citations. Born and raised in the Mississippi Delta, he lives now in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he serves as Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Pittsburgh.

Lightning Song Is Hilarious, high-risk fiction that walks the wire between vision and vertigo.

Leroy Dearman is twelve, and he lives on a llama farm in Mississippi when Uncle Harris arrives in a sports car, full of new ideas. He sets up a pretty grand bachelor pad in the attic, with a telephone, a TV set, and a stack of Playboy magazines. He is, you might say, Romance itself.

And life on the llama farm takes on an entirely different flavor. Electricity fills the house. Equilibrium tilts, lightning strikes, and Leroy finds himself kissing his innocence good-bye.

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