October's Featured Book
The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint, a novel by Brady Udall.
Book Summary
If I could tell you only one thing about my life it would be this: when I was seven years old the mailman ran over my head. As formative events go, nothing else comes close.
With these words Edgar Mint, half-Apache and mostly orphaned, makes his unshakable claim on our attention. In the course of Brady Udall’s high-spirited, inexhaustibly inventive novel, Edgar survives not just this bizarre accident, but a hellish boarding school for Native American orphans, a well-meaning but wildly dysfunctional Mormon foster-family, and the loss of most of the illusions that are supposed to make life bearable. What persists is Edgar’s innate goodness, his belief in the redeeming power of language, and his determination to find and forgive the man who almost killed him. The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint is a miracle of storytelling, bursting with heartache and hilarity and inhabited by characters as outsized as the landscape of the American West.
Links of Interest
Robert Birnbaum interviews Brady Udall.
Read an essay by Udall about his inspiration for his main character on Powells.com.
Reviews
Read reviews from Publishers Weekly, School Library Journal, and more on Amazon.com
Reading Guide
Discussion questions for The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint can be found here.
Purchase This Book (and Support the Festival!)
The Calvin College Campus Store is the official retailer for Festival 2008. You can buy Fieldwork for a great price either through their website or in the store. When you buy through the Campus Store, a portion of all sales go to support the Festival of Faith and Writing.