  Author(s): Clyde Edgerton Genre: Mainstream Fiction Deposition: After reading two Edgerton duds ( Raney and Redeye ) it was a pleasant surprise to find that his first novel attempt was a gem.
Because I'm a complete and total idiot I read this book and its sequel in reverse order. However, I found that my blunder didn't spoil the plot in the slightest bit. The two plots were completely individual--you needn't read one to understand the other. Egypt tells a story of an old woman named Mattie who's "slowing down.
" At 78 she fears she's getting careless and senile, however has too much pride to give up the lifestyle she's become accustomed to: watching her soaps at 1 PM everyday and making sure no one knows it. She won't even keep a dog because she's so set in her routines that she fears she won't have time to mind it. You know the sort: those Southern women whom would tell strangers fixing their shutters or delivering their mail what time they should stop by on a given day so that they can have a hot slice of pie waiting for them when they come by.
Those strangers will inevitably show up, too (wearing a bib and carrying a paper plate and piece of tin foil to take some home with them). Mattie reminded me so much of my ever-servicing grandmother that I had to cringe. The monkey-wrench that gets thrown into the works is Wesley: a juvenile delinquent who oddly enough is willing to change his heathen ways in exchange for a piece of "the best pound cake ever" and the ability to take a hot bath.
This blend of sinner and saint in novels is nothing innovative, but the extent to which Edgerton stretches it out it seems to be almost hyperbole. (I can assure you from my own experiences that it's not! ) I loved this book. There's so much of the North Carolina I know in it that it makes me giddy. Verdict: If it's at your library, check it and the sequel Killer Diller out. 
