Edisto, Padget Powell and Univ of FL Creative Writing program

Rachel tells me that Padgett Powell writes and teaches at Univ of FL. She recommended I read his novel, "Edisto".

I just ran across this review of "Edisto Revisited":

"Simons Manigault, the indelibly-drawn narrator of Padgett Powell's acclaimed first novel "Edisto," published in 1984, comes crawling back for more in this sequel. An appropriate subtitle might have been "A Romance of Avoidance." Powell's hero, now freshly degreed in architecture, flees both Clemson University and his girlfriend, "nice white-Jewish Sheila." He seeks sanctuary from the expectations of lover, family, and self on the titular island home of his childhood, only to be steered by his assiduously dysfunctional mother into a tryst with his cousin Patricia. Incest, in theory and practice, is regarded in this book like some cosmic practical joke played on all Southerners. Prior to his transgression, for example, Simons observes of himself and his mother, "We would be lovers, were biology not considerably in the way."

Simons does find a perverse bliss with his father's sister's daughter. "I set to thinking about what I was going to do with myself, now that I apparently had a woman who knew what to do with herself." But, with another flimsy pretext at hand, he flees. He spends months in Texas "asphalt fishing" -- that is, working as a trucker for a seafood chain..."

I love concept of "asphalt fishing"...

Edisto is out of print, but luckily it's available at the Alachua library here in Gainesville.