FICTION REVIEW: "The Night Train"

In his ninth and latest novel, "The Night Train," Clyde Edgerton plunges his pitch-perfect language into the muck of attempting to describe music and its effects on us -- and rises plain and clear as middle C. Here he is describing jazz: "It moved on more planes than a flat one. It moved in a cube. It was not soft stuff. ... It was like you'd played with somebody better than you -- something that always happened -- and you learned something, came out on the other side stronger."

This book is literary instrument meeting his perfect song.

Set in 1963 in small-town North Carolina, the story follows the separate but intersecting lives of two teen boys -- one black and one white -- who discover music and friendship as they work at a furniture shop. There's the black Larry Lime, whose full given name is Larry Lime Beacon of Time Reckoning Breathe on Me Nolan. (Is it any surprise he will become a jazz musician?) He's introduced to jazz piano by a hemophiliac guitarist called The Bleeder, also black. White boy Dwayne is starting a band. Dwayne doesn't have access to The Bleeder, but he does have some friends who play drums and horns, and the white privilege of possibly getting his fledging rock 'n' roll band, the Amazing Rumblers, on a local television show. Larry Lime has a dancing chicken, Thelonius Monk riffs and James Brown's "Live at the Apollo."

All blow Dwayne's mind -- "to Dwayne, the sound was dirty and powerful and clean," Edgerton writes -- and set this lightly comic and deeply moving story of racial and musical integration in motion.

Edgerton has been accused of --and celebrated for -- meandering plots, and this one's no exception. Along the way there are aunts and mamas, shenanigans with chickens and girlfriends, catfish noodling, cops and a man named Bobby Lee Reese who regularly eats dog food on TV. The plot is layered, nonlinear, sidetracking. But who cares? We all know the end -- the mix of black music into white culture begets civil rights and a generation of activism -- so it's not the destination that Edgerton is working here. The journey's the thing.

Plus, Edgerton has the volume turned up on his Southerner; the meander is part of the charm. He sometimes addresses us as if we were his front-porch visitor. "How it was back then," he'll start. Or, "You might wonder why," reminding us that this story is of a time and place, and that he is the one to tell it. (If you need any more credibility, look up the author's banjo picking, his music-filled author readings and his noted ability to hypnotize chickens.)

Back to the story: We're on the cusp of something big here, and Dwayne and Larry Lime feel it. This novel belongs to the ominous moments that lead each character to step onto the platform of his or her humanity. (The book's one flaw is that a key moment is missing: the Amazing Rumblers' first gig.) With Edgerton's gifted ear, this novel simply and powerfully shows how music creates inclusivity, brings out our inherent goodness and helps us express love.

I followed the book with 20 minutes of YouTube clips from live 1960s James Brown performances of "Night Train." The backup dancers pound so hard that their bow ties and wigs fall off. The Godfather of Soul spasms like he's his own strobe light. In the crowd, blacks and whites alike stand and scream and lose their minds when Brown shouts, "Let me hear you say, 'Yeah!'"

Edgerton's book isn't that. It gently takes your hand and leads you up to that.

Still, this white girl gotta say yeah.

Stephanie Wilbur Ash is a writer of both songs and stories. She lives in Minneapolis and Mankato.