The Night Train

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Book cover, ''The Night Train''

Clyde Edgerton's new novel, "The Night Train," focuses on the transcendent power of American music as witnessed in the small, fictional North Carolina town of Starke. In the summer of 1963, protagonists Dwayne, who is white, and Larry Lime, who is African-American, strike up a friendship despite the social mores of the time. Dwayne wants to be James Brown. Larry Lime worships at the altar of Thelonius Monk.