The Sunlight Dialogues

Description

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. [From Amazon.] List o£ Characters xiii Prologue 9 I The Watchdog 7 II When the Exorcist Shall Go to the House of the Patient 59 III Lion Emerging from Cage 124 IV Mama 1J9 V Hunting Wild Asses 208 VI Esther 275 VII The Dialogue on Wood and Stone 902 VIII The Kleppmann File 331 IX "Like a robber, I shall proceed according to my will." 358 X Poetry and Life 382 XI The Dialogue of Houses 400 XII A Mother's Love 429 XIII Nah ist—und schwer zu fassen der Gott 330 XIV The Wilderness 483 XV The Dialogue of the Dead 507 XVI Love and Duty 537 XVII Benson versus Boyle 343 XVIII The Dragon’s Dwelling-Place and the Court for Owls 363 XIX Workmen in a Quarry 577 XX Winged Figure Carrying Sacrificial Animal 611 XXI The Dialogue of Towers 625 XXII Luke 633 XXIII E silentio 643 XXIV Law and Order 667