Clyde Edgerton's Latest

The writer Clyde Edgerton, who was a USAF Forward Air Control pilot during his 1970-71 Vietnam War tour of duty, flying missions out of  Nakhon Phanom Air Base in Thailand, has written nine novels, a memoir, short stories, and essays.  Edgerton’s latest book is Night Train (Little, Brown, 224 pp., $23.99), a mostly comic novel set in 1963 in rural North Carolina, where the author was born and raised. It focuses on the interracial friendship between two teen-agers.

“Edgerton sustains a wry tone in this lightly plotted novel, ” the P ublishers Weekly review said, “where the action is confined to band practices, a chicken flung over a cinema balcony, and well-intentioned but comically inept attempts at integration. “

Clyde Edgerton teaches creative writing at the University of North Carolina-Wilmington.