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    The Bible Salesman
    The Bible Salesman
    The Bible Salesman
    Audiobook5 hours

    The Bible Salesman

    Written by Clyde Edgerton

    Narrated by T. Ryder Smith

    3/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    A musician and songwriter, Clyde Edgerton has penned multiple best-sellers and has had five of his novels named New York Times Notable Books. In The Bible Salesman, Preston Clearwater is scoring cash working a car-theft ring in post-World War II North Carolina. When he picks up 19-year-old Bible salesman Henry Dampier, Preston convinces the kid that he's an FBI spy. And before Henry knows what's up, he finds himself in way over his head with no apparent way out.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateSep 26, 2008
    ISBN9781436183567
    The Bible Salesman

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    Reviews for The Bible Salesman

    3/5

    103 ratings18 reviews

    What did you think?

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    • 4/5
      Written good, coherent story and plot. Didn't do a lot for me besides remembering some of my own childhood as the book varied back and forth between the 1930s and 1950s.
    • 2/5
      I really liked Walking Across Egypt and was expecting the same sort of thing. This book was a disappointment.
    • 3/5
      It's 1950 in South Carolina (in the book, I mean). Henry Dampier is a friendly twenty-year-old who writes to bible publishers, requesting copies to be given away to poor folks, and then sells the bibles to support himself. He ponders the truths to be found in the great book and wonders about many of them. While hitchhiking, he is picked up by Preston Clearwater, who explains that he is an undercover FBI agent and needs a bright young protege like Henry. Henry helps Clearwater, falls in lust/love with a young lady at a fruit stand, and eventually begins to understand what's been going on around him. We see a bit of Henry's southern upbringing. It's a quick read and a pleasant enough story, with wry humor underpinning almost all of it, but I didn't enjoy it as much as some of Edgerton's other novels.
    • 2/5
      This book had potential and there were good parts, just not worth it in the long run. Stick to Flannery O'Conner.
    • 2/5
      Meh. The reviews that I read said it was 'hysterical'. I didn't find anything funny about it, and I have a pretty dry sense of humor. The story is dull and the writing is poor.
    • 3/5
      Edgerton's story of a young, wildly naïve bible salesman who falls into the web of wayward car thief and career criminal, Preston Clearwater, somewhat disappoints. It seems that it's trying to be a comedy but isn't quite funny enough. The parts with hapless Henry unwittingly falling for Clearwater's ruse that he's working with the FBI to bust a car theft ring pair unevenly with much more compelling tastes of the bible salesman's childhood. Here is the odd book that might have been better had it taken itself a little more seriously.
    • 2/5
      eh...it was just OK. I wish there was more of Henry's backstory because I didn't really enjoy any of the Henry/Clearwater story).
    • 3/5
      [author: Clyde Edgerton]'s [book: Walking Across Egypt] is one of my favorites, and the first book of his that I read. Perhaps because I liked it so much, all the others of his I've read have been slightly disappointing. The Bible Salesman was also, and this may be unfair. Although I wouldn't call it laugh-out-loud funny, it did produce a chuckle or two and a lot of wry grins. Edgerton has a great ear for his native Southern dialect and I always appreciate that. It's difficult to read this book without comparing and contrasting to [author: Flannery O'Connor]'s [book: Wise Blood]; they'd make a good pair for a book discussion. I'd still recommend Walking Across Egypt first, but this book is certainly worth reading.
    • 4/5
      Set in 1950 in the Southern U.S., The Bible Salesman tells the story of a few months in the life of Henry Dampier, 20-year-old door to door bible Salesman. Henry is a ‘good boy’, intelligent but oh-so-naïve. Preston Clearwater, a key figure in a large auto theft ring, hires Henry for a small job and manages to convince him that he is undercover FBI and Henry can be too.Edgerton does a brilliant job of conveying Henry’s intelligence, even though his naïveté causes him to unquestioningly trust this stranger. Henry’s ponderings on his Bible readings are also interesting.(T)hen it [the Bible] said that Adam would return to dust. Why wouldn’t he go to heaven or hell? That’s where everybody went, wasn’t it? Nobody just returned to dust, did they? Was there not a heaven when Adam was alive? Wait, in Genesis 1:1 God created heaven and earth; so there was a heaven when he told Adam he was going back to dust, but God didn’t create hell. Did he create hell? It didn’t say so.Great questions, Henry.This is a warm and amusing book with a preposterous scenario at its heart. But it works. Recommended. 4 starsRead this if: you’re looking for a light read with a likeable every-day-type protagonist; or if you’d like to compare how modern communication (mainly the Internet) has informed and educated just about everybody.
    • 4/5
      The burial of the cat toward the beginning of the book is well worth the price of admission (David Sedaris gives a plug for the "burial tuck" on the cover of the book). It's not often that words on a page make me laugh at loud, but Edgerton is one of the folks who can do it (Sedaris is another). Add to that the character of the Bible salesman who muses on the disturbing inconsistencies of the Scriptures he's hawking and...well...I'm sold!
    • 5/5
      Amazing. Obviously, we must all buy this and read it and tell the world about Clyde.
    • 4/5
      A fairly good read. I was a little disappointed at the lack of his humor (haven't read in years since Raney and Walking Across Egypt). Still, the characters were wonderful and the story pulled you along in many avenues of thought.
    • 3/5
      A good book, nicely written. But it lacks any real punch. The plot is a nieve young semi-con artist is conned by a real criminal - but it all turns out well in the end. No reason not to read it, but not one I'd recomend as a "must read" either.
    • 2/5
      With a front-cover David Sedaris blurb, I expected high hilarity on the level of Raney. What I got was a mildly funny and entertaining novel, with an ending that seemed just a little too pat. I'm glad I read this, but it's not Clyde Edgerton's best effort.
    • 4/5
      This Southern tale set in the 50's blended adventure and place wonderfully - like the rest of Edgerton's books. I found the families interesting and the character's well developed but not belabored - you felt like you knew them just enough. I wanted the story to go on a little more - I wanted to find out more of Clearwater's background and what happened next in Henry's life. Which is a good sign in a book - you are left wanting more (rather than relief that you've finally finished). If this is your first book of Edgerton's you are off to a good start with many more great books to come.
    • 4/5
      I didn't find this short novel nearly as humorous as David Sedaris did, but then I'm not David Sedaris. Still, The Bible Salesman is a an enjoyable read with some interesting characters.The most intriguing is Henry Dampier, the 20-year-old Bible salesman of the title. He is naive, innocent, and gullible, but awfully smart for someone who thinks stealing cars is all in a days work for your everyday FBI agent. The smart part is revealed in his dead-on critique of the many contradictions in the Bible, like the first two chapters of Genesis which says first God created the animals, then man, but later reverses the order, man coming first. Maybe poor Henry just has his mind too cluttered up with religious mysteries to notice that his mentor and employer, supposed FBI agent Preston Clearwater, is actually a criminal mastermind. It's that dichotomy of experience that makes Henry's plight so humorous as the unlikely pair make their way across the South stealing cars, safes, and other sundries while Henry pines for his first real love and the thief of his virginity.
    • 3/5
      I am honestly having a very hard time deciding what to write about this book. It was pleasant enough - a short, fairly enjoyable little read. There are also some very funny parts. But after finishing the last page I felt unsatisfied, as if I needed to go back to read the book again to see if I missed anything.The plot centers on Henry, who is a young traveling (and less than honest) Bible salesman. He gets unwittingly mixed up with a car thief named Clearwater, and the two of them set off across the countryside, causing trouble, looking for love, and ultimately finding themselves in a cliffhanger at the end of the book.All of that sounds fairly interesting and exciting, but it somehow amounts to less than exciting and interesting in the book. Edgerton alternates constantly between Henry's present and his childhood, and to me this slowed the pace of the book down too much.I don't mean to be too harsh on this book, because Edgerton is obviously a very good writer. I may just need to read another book by him, because I don't think this is his best effort.
    • 4/5
      The Bible Salesman is a quick, entertaining read. It's comic Southern fiction that will have you laughing out loud as you follow the misguided adventures of sweet, naive Henry Dampier.Henry is at once pious, flawed, and tempted. The story is told from his point of view with flashbacks to his childhood and occasional interjections from Clearwater's point of view, which give the reader a glimpse into the criminal's mind but can come as a bit of a surprise since there is no clear dilineation between the changing voices.Henry has no idea that Clearwater is a seasoned criminal. He thinks the taciturn Clark Gable look-alike is an undercover F.B.I. agent. At times one wonders how the young man can be so naive, but then, that's part of what makes this story so funny.The dialogue between characters is authentic and amusing. Often conversations are comically meandering. It's easy to picture them sitting around the kitchen table, or driving down the road, waxing eloquent about religion or their latest business venture. Edgerton does a fantastic job with the southern dialect spoken by his characters.Throughout most of the book, Edgerton keeps the reader wondering just exactly how Henry will extricate himself from this situation without ending up in prison, or worse yet, Clearwater's next victim. But given the overall tone of this story, it is safe to assume that somehow it will all work out for Henry in the end.A friend asked if I thought this book would be offensive to Christians. (Henry is a Baptist in a staunchly religious community who has recently began reading the Bible with a critical eye, which has given rise to a few questions and doubts.) I enjoyed reading about Henry's struggle to come to terms with faith and religion. He read the Bible literally and in doing so, stumbled upon somewhat obvious contradictions that he refused to overlook but instead examined with a questioning mind.Rather than seeing this as a condemnation of Christianity or religion in general, I found it provided another layer to the story, one that in the end leaves the reader wondering if Henry lost his faith, or embraced a more refined and enlightened version of it.Oh, and did I mention this book is FUNNY? Actually, I did, but it bears repeating. In fact, I was flipping through it several days after finishing, looking for a specific passage, and kept coming across comic parts of the story and laughing at them all over again.