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New Directions
December 2006
On Sale: November 30, 2006
736 pages
ISBN: 0811216705
EAN: 9780811216708
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Fiction
Madman. Prophet. Magician. Hippie. Murderer. Who is the
Sunlight Man?
In The Sunlight Dialogues,
John Gardner's vision of America in the turbulent 1960s
embraces an unconventional cast of conventional citizens in
the small rural town of Batavia, New York. Sheriff Fred
Clumly is trying desperately to unravel mysteries
surrounding a disorderly, nameless drifter called "The
Sunlight Man," who has been jailed for painting the word
"LOVE" across two lanes of traffic, and who is later
suspected of murder. The men battle over morality, freedom
and their opposing notions of justice, leading each to find
his own state of grace. Their conflict is mirrored in the
community of middlebrow politicians and their church-going
wives, Native Americans, working-class immigrants, farmers,
soldiers, petty thieves, and even centenarian sisters too
stubborn to die. Gardner's alchemy is existential: from the
most raw, vulnerable, and conflicting characters in the
American melting pot, he transmutes common denominators of
human isolation and longing. With unnerving suspense, his
acute ear for American speech, and permeated by his
deep-rooted belief in morality, this expansive, sprawling,
and ambitious novel is John Gardner's masterpiece: "A superb
literary achievement," noted The Boston Globe.
No awards found for this book.
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