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Summary: Don't bother reading this review.
Review: You are wasting your time. Stop. Now. Read the book. Then spread the word. Or don't. No matter what you do or don't do this book will be as ubiquitous as Cold Mountain was and just as rapidly. ...gotta go, started reading it at 3AM, it's 8AM now and I'm on page 210, exactly half way through. Don't wait to get it in the mail, get away from the computer grab your car keys, hie yourself down to the closest bookstore and buy the book [reordering of all the literary synapses in your head].
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Summary: THE NEW JOHN IRVING-----INDEED
Review: I have never read anything like this--the only thing that comes close are the best two or three books of John Irving. I agree with the other reviewer that Brady Udall must be the new John Irving--a new and improved version that is. Edgar Mint is the most striking, funny, beautiful character I have ever come across. I hurt for him, laughed at and with him, worried over him. I'm thinking about him still. I don't know, I may even be in love with him, and I'm a straight man. Read this book. Give it to your friends and family and neighbors. Once Edgar Mint is in your life, he will never leave.
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Summary: best novel i've read all year
Review: After sludging through alot of mediocre novels this year, with alot of characters I don't care about, Edgar Mint has come to the rescue! Characters that come to life, a plot that keeps you turning the pages, a writing style that is easy to consume- Brady Udall has it all in this wonderful book. Not to mention, a hero you won't easily forget. I read it in one day.
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Summary: Incredible!
Review: Simply one of the best books I've read in the last 5 years. A gripping story, well told, with wonderful characters. I'm already looking forward to rereading it.
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Summary: Wonderful
Review: This book certainly does suffer from the "Just One More Chapter" Syndrome, but what could be more wonderful when those chapters are about the delightful Edgar Mint. I loved this novel, Edgar, who has the most horrific start in life, is one of the most vibrant characters I have ever come across in fiction (though by the end of the novel I'd half convinced myself he was a living, breathing being). He is deliciously fierce and full of determination, he doesn't just survive, his ordeals (hospital, orphanage, adoption) he lives his life wholly. This is also one of the funniest books I have read in years, it's been along time since I've laughed aloud so much. Kudos to Brady Udall, this is a brilliant book.
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Summary: please welcome the new john irving
Review: This is the kind of book Irving USED to write. It's touching, funny, tender, shattering and at the most unexpected moments, beautiful. I still haven't caught my breath after reading it. You will never meet another character like Edgar, I promise you, and you will never regret meeting him, though he will certainly break your heart.
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Summary: Why isn't anyone talking about this book?!
Review: I was one of the many readers impressed by "Letting Loose the Hounds," the author's collection of short stories. A young writer, indeed, but the stories showed much promise, all of which is delivered with this stunning gem of a novel. Edgar Mint is an unforgettable character, the book an unflinching testament to the power of hope and innocence in an ugly world. The novel is filled with fully realized characters, humor, grief--all the stuff of life--all of it rendered in a style that often approaches the simple elegance of our finest writers (Bellow, Updike, Ford).There are few books that have compelled me to stay me up all night reading (i.e., the dreaded "Just One More Chapter" Syndrome) and this is one of them. You'll remember Edgar Mint long after Hollywood ruins him with bad casting and focus groups.
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Summary: Interview with Brady Udall
Review: Edgar Mint's childhood mission is locating the mailman who ran over his head as a child. He wants to assure him that he's OK. This mission is the focus of Brady Udall's The Miracle of Edgar Mint. The author's inspiration to write Edgar's story developed from something much less painful than having his head run over, although possibly equally as dramatic. The peculiar story that gave Udall the framework to work was sparked when his then girlfriend, now wife, revealed she was dating another man. She told him about the other man and how as a child he'd been run over by a mailman. Udall actively sought this man out. "He thought I was going to beat him up," Udall says. But he was too interested in his history to hurt him. The other man's story was the inspiration for Edgar's. The Miracle of Edgar Mint is Udall's first novel, although he has written many short stories. "The hard part is getting the confidence and figuring it out." Udall says. "It's a huge investment of time and energy. This book took three and a half years." That time was spent shaping and perfecting the story of a young boy facing hardships that most would find daunting, yet he perseveres. Run over at 7, Edgar spends months in a hospital until he's sent to live with an uncle he's never met on an Indian reservation and goes to a school where he's tormented daily by classmates. Edgar manages to flee the school to the home of a Mormon family willing to take him in, but his problems continue. Udall wrote the story in first and third person in part because Edgar's story is so unusual and also because it's a grown Edgar telling us the story of his childhood. "Edgar is a character in his own story," Udall says. "He's aware he's a character in his own story." This makes the jumps between reading Edgar's story from his own point of view or from an outside narrator as logical as the jumps between the settings of Edgar's life. Although some of the locations in The Miracle of Edgar Mint were fictional, others, such as Edgar's school, were real places near where Udall grew up in Arizona. With so many settings for Edgar's experiences, Udall could have done extensive research to get each detail right. Although this is what he started to do, eventually he stopped researching at all. "Imagination with a few good details is enough, with the right attitude," Udall says. "I like to have the freedom to make it the way I want." In The Miracle of Edgar Mint, Udall let his imagination run rampant. "I grew up in a big stable Mormon family, the polar opposite of what Edgar grew up with," he says. Edgar experiences more turmoil in 10 years than most people do in a lifetime. Still, Udall manages to show the humorous side of otherwise depressing circumstances. An admirer of the writing of Mark Twain, Udall sees writing comedy as an ultimate achievement. "It's not easy to take depressing, bleak writing and inject it with humor," he says. Not easy, perhaps, but that's exactly what he does. For instance, while recovering at the hospital, Edgar is surrounded by people in hopeless situations. And while sad, when he turns to a urinal puck for comfort, there's something darkly comedic about his deodorizing security blanket. Lightening the mood in what could be a dark story is also Edgar's unabashed motivation to live. As the character himself says in reference to himself and the people he befriends during his hospital stay, "We were broken and afflicted and maybe ... we could make ourselves whole again." Edgar's mission to locate the mailman from his past seems to be the key to making himself whole. Udall tried to reflect in Edgar the motivation he saw in kids from troubled backgrounds. "I tried to place myself as a child." Udall says. "I've talked to lots of children. They're not aware that there's an alternative. They don't believe they have a choice." Unaware, perhaps, that he can do anything but carry on, Edgar keeps going, trying to make himself whole. In so doing, his story becomes an endearing one of survival.
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Summary: Brilliant writing, amazing characters, hope for the future
Review: I recently attended a booksellers conference and "Edgar Mint" was the talk of the professionals there...so I couldn't wait to get home and dig in. I was not disappointed. Edgar Mint is one of the most unforgettable characters I have encountered in many years, and his story is at once engaging, tragic, engrossing and terrifying. The most compelling part of the book is that despite life events which would have most of us on Prozac or Jack Daniels for the rest of our lives, Edgar takes each part of his life at face value, and ultimately is able to view life with an incredible amount of hope and love. Unlike a previous reviewer, I found the ending enormously satisfying and even life-affirming. We hear so many stories about kids "falling through the cracks;" those whose life circumstances caused them to act out violence or other anti-social behaviors to others. What a ray of hope it is to read a story where a character lives his entire life not to plot revenge on those who have wronged him, but to forgive...and in doing so, changes the lives of all he touches for the better. Read this book!!!
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Summary: Wonderful
Review: I loved this book. I have read reviews of those who don't like the ending because they feel it is too campy, but i think that after how much Edgar had to endure, the reader wants him to have a happy ending. I have given this book to many family and friends to read, and they all loved it, too.
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