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Coasters NewSouth Books Waylon McPhee, middle-aged and divorced, moves back in with his widowed father in hopes of coasting through another year. But his father is dating again, and his sisters are trying to manipulate Waylon into asking their father for their inheritance before he gives it to a second wife. Adding to the pandemonium are an affair with an obsessive married woman, some old high school acquaintances, and Waylon’s renewed interest in the Prom Queen from his old high school, the same school where he has taken a job as a substitute teacher. The sarcastic Waylon, juggling his relationships and responsibilities caustically but light-heartedly, hangs on hoping to recover something that he lost in his youth: enough momentum to reach escape velocity. By turns humorous and melancholy, this novel cruises to a conclusion where all its characters satisfyingly reap what they have sown. Gerald Duff is a splendid writer of sparkling dialogue, and has perfect pitch for the ennui of contemporary life in the suburbs of the petroleum-chemical corridor that stretches along the Gulf Coast from Texas to Mississippi.
Reviews “Raunchy, redemptive, and readable as hell, Coasters is a great comic novel with a serious undertow. Nobody in America writes better dialogue than Gerald Duff. He never condescends to his sometimes marginal characters, treating these lives with wit, understanding, and compassion. I know these people. . . . you probably do, too. And I’ll bet you can’t put this book down either.” “A 48-year-old slacker moves back in with his widowed father in Port Arthur, Tex., in the latest offering from native Texan Duff (Memphis Ribs). Recently laid off by British Petroleum, Waylon McPhee returns to his Gulf Coast hometown with vague notions of achieving the ‘escape velocity’ necessary to move forward in life. He falls easily into a familiar pattern of interaction with querulous family members and wacky locals who have remained in the same place their entire lives. Taking a job as a substitute teacher in his former high school, Waylon discovers that the director of the school play is none other than Diane Dailey, one of Port Arthur's famous: she once had a small role on television's Dallas. Much to his chagrin, Waylon finds that middle age has done little to temper his awkwardness with women. While conducting a lukewarm affair with another woman and tentatively forging a friendship with Diane, Waylon must also contend with his sisters' meddling in their widower father's newfound relationship with Hazel Boles, a British divorcé and the unexpected arrival of his gay son, Brian, who is creating a lip-synching act to honor Janis Joplin (Port Arthur's best-known progeny). Deft, often droll comedy is at the fore in Duff's story of people who may not have a lot going on, but who sure do keep trying to figure it out, in their own time. Hilarious scenes of family outings and school play rehearsals round out the realistic depiction of life in the oft-neglected other New South. Waylon may not exactly achieve any major epiphanies, but what he does learn is demonstrated with a wit and subtlety as simply satisfying as a tall cold one on a hot Gulf Coast afternoon.” “Gerald Duff’s Coasters is a wild carnival ride to the rocky bottom of the New Economy—ferociously funny all the way through, and washed in a shade of deep poignancy.” “Coasters seldom coasts. Instead, it gathers steam all the way, and when you finally crest the big hill and head home, hang on to the bar over your legs, because Gerald Duff doesn’t know what it means to slow down. This book is a world of fun.” “Unlike most people, Duff keeps getting better. Everybody ought to read this coast-to-coast.”
Links Visit Gerald Duff’s Web site at http://geraldduff.com/. Also by Gerald Duff:
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