Edgar and Lucy by Victor Lodato Published by St. Martin's Press on March 7th 2017
Genres: Literary Fiction
Pages: 544
Format: eBook, Audiobook
Source: NetGalley & St. Martin's Press
"I love this book." —Lena Dunham
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.
**Special thanks to NetGalley & St. Martin's Press for supplying my copy of this book in exchange for an honest and unbiased review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.**
This literary masterpiece can be mostly described as a love story. Well, not the romantic type of love. Edgar and Lucy is a book about kindness, about the endless humanly love that can even change fate.
At the center of this epic novel is a precious eight years old child, Edgar. Edgar lives with his grandmother Florence and his mother Lucy. Florence is Edgar’s paternal mother. Both Florence and Lucy are Edgar’s only remaining relatives except for a maternal grandfather who couldn’t care less about his daughter and grandson. There had been a family tragedy. Edgar’s father had died in the most questionable way. No one wants to talk about that. However, the demons of this tragedy still torment Florence and Lucy, though in different ways for each one of them. While Florence had found her relief in dedicating her life to Edgar and filling the role of his mother, Lucy had been trying to immerse herself in drinking and relations. The threesome had found their way into living with each other.
However, when Florence dies, Lucy and Edgar find themselves alone. They only have each other and they have to learn how to survive. Lucy is just beginning to realize how far she had been from her son’s life when new strategy strikes. Now the stakes are much higher. Through a very compelling novel, Victor Lodato takes us through the story of Edgar and Lucy and their journey. Will they be able to survive the new tragedy?
The main hero in this novel is Edgar. He’s such a brilliant character invented by Victor Lodato. Seeing things through the inquisitive eyes of Edgar makes you sense the fear, joy and innocence of an eight years old child. There’s this wonder in his spirit like a little child visiting the circus for the first time. He has to learn a lot. He is a real hero. With his eight years and innocent fear and weakness, he possesses a very powerful weapon. It’s his very loving heart. He has enormous love in his heart. It’s this love that saves him through very delicate and critical situations. He had received this love from Florence. Through the watching eyes of the boy, he seems to have absorbed all this love and he’s radiating it to the world.
Florence is the typical model of absolute grandmother love. She’s dedicated to the boy. I could relate with Florence so much. Though both my grandmothers had died long before I was born, my girls were lucky enough to enjoy this type of grandmother love. I see this bond of kindness and love between them and their grandmother and I realize how special and nurturing that is. It’s something different from a mother’s love. It’s very unique and precious.
There’s a lot of kindness in this book. It’s this kindness that changes the sequence of actions in the book and gets people safely out of very risky situations. It touches my heart and keeps me thinking. How easy it is to inflict harm, but how enchanting and magical it is to prevent it through kindness. Like kindness is a weapon and a protective shield. It’s like a shining diamond in one’s heart radiating warmth and safety.
There’s a wide cast of characters in this book. Each character in the book is unique and sometimes mysterious. Each has their own share of mystery, kindness and sometimes darkness. It’s great how Victor Lodato could set all their characters and direct them like they were performing on a stage with kindness as the playback melody.
I enjoyed listening to the audiobook narrated by Victor Lodato. It’s amazing how he changed the tone of his voice with each character and situation, sometimes showing the fear and doubt in the boy’s voice and others the recklessness and despair in Lucy’s voice. Not only that. The book is a sea of emotions and Victor Lodato could adjust the tone of his voice to reflect every emotion and character.
Forget about the Blurb. This is a book that you need to dive into to enjoy every part of it. Edgar and Lucy is one of the best books of 2017.
About Victor Lodato
Victor Lodato is a playwright and novelist. His book, Mathilda Savitch, was hailed by The New York Times as “a Salingeresque wonder of a first novel” and 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.
Victor is a Guggenheim Fellow, as well as the recipient of fellowships from The National Endowment for the Arts, The Princess Grace Foundation, The Camargo Foundation (France), and The Bogliasco Foundation (Italy).
His short fiction and essays have been published in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Granta, and Best American Short Stories. His new novel, Edgar and Lucy, is forthcoming from St. Martin’s Press (March 2017).
Victor was born and raised in New Jersey, and currently dives his time between Ashland, Oregon and Tucson, Arizona.