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    Raney
    Raney
    Raney
    Audiobook6 hours

    Raney

    Written by Clyde Edgerton

    Narrated by Ruth Ann Phimister

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Clyde Edgerton's ear for regional voices and his eye for life's small but significant details enable him to create characters who are charming and utterly convincing. Beginning with an engagement announcement and ending with the birth of a son, Raney is a snapshot of the first few years of a modern Southern marriage. Newly married, Raney is a Southern Baptist who has lived her whole life in her tiny home town. Her husband Charles is a newcomer, a liberal raised in Atlanta. Amidst family traditions, curious relatives, and bowls of macaroni salad, their search for common ground begins. As Raney tells us about Charles' beliefs and habits, and thus reveals her own, her honesty and gumption will capture your heart and tickle your funny bone. Narrator Ruth Ann Phimister's soft voice beautifully captures the emotional tides that rise and fall in Raney's life.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateApr 22, 2011
    ISBN9781461810216
    Raney

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    Reviews for Raney

    4/5

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    • 5/5

      This is the endearingly funny first novel by Clyde Edgerton who grew up in Bethesda, NC. He currently teaches at UNCW. The story is about the marriage of a feisty Free Will Baptist and a liberal librarian. ""Music is what brought Charles and me together,"" narrator Raney Bell explains. ""He don't look like a banjo picker but he sounds good."" And though Raney has ""a weird way of looking at things,"" Charles appreciates her ""stabs of common sense."" So it's on to the shaky wedding festivities. There is some talk that folks from up north tend to imbibe on alcohol at weddings. That is an abhorrent idea in the Free Will Baptist thinking. The wedding happens and Raney is not happy the men are going outside for more than kool aid punch! But the wedding comes off smooth enough. Then comes the wedding night--the proper.time for the marriage to be ""consumed."" Raney is unnerved to find Charles standing there in his Fruit of the Loom drinking champagne out of a plastic cup.
      But, while things get settled down sex-wise, it's soon obvious that Charles ""just don't have a single sense about family"": he gets mad when Mama drops in unannounced; isn't it good manners to call first? Charles does go to the the Bell Sunday dinners but he uses this event try out his ""aggressiveness training""; he gets upset about Raney's and her family's use of the word ""nigger"" it's okay to say nigger about a black person and of course she'd never say it to a black in person, allright?
      Charles was in the military with a man named Johnny and they have remained close friends. And are whites and blacks supposed to mix like this? Charles and Johnny talk regularly on the phone. To Raney, Johnny doesn't sound black on the phone. Hmmmm... Rainey is able to hear their conversations through a vent. She tells herself she must tell Charles about this breech, but never gets around to doing it.
      Charles seems grumpy when dragged along on Bell-family outings--or on a good-deed Golden Agers trip to see a cannon shot off by an old Reb who has raised fine kids. (""Didn't a one go to college, thank the good Lord."") So, while Charles bashes wits against the righteousness of Raney's kin, a marital explosion looms. Raney--who does understand the imperatives of family ties--clashes with Charles, the enlightened. Even though Raney's family doesn't understand the need for psychologists, Charles convinces her to go a marriage-counselor session with a ""psychiatric."" This goes errrr fairly well.

      But somehow it's some erotic sinning in the feed-room of Daddy's grocery and maybe those two glasses of white wine Raney consumed. Anyway, this sets the stage for an event leading up to a birth announcement. Affectionate teasing rather than cutting satire--this quick read narrated by Raney herself, a delectable hard-shell Southern flower.
      I wasn't a sequel!!!
    • 4/5
      Jim and I took turns reading this book out loud to each other years and years ago. It is a sweet, funny book. Edgerton knows his Southerners. I mentioned it to two of my cousins during our recent cousin reunion. When I got home, I remembered that Edgerton had lost his job at a Baptist college because of this book; so I decided to re-read it to decide if I wanted to send a copy to my Baptist cousin. And I do. It is somewhat dated, but still a warm account of two very different people learning be married to each other.
    • 4/5
      Another good book from Edgerton, poor-girl-makes-good in a nice way is how I remember it.
    • 5/5
      Southern baptist girl from the sticks marries northeastern Episcopalian and the sparks fly. Edgerton deftly portrays their love and their differences, so you know why they fight, but you also know why they stay together.