Download or read book Blue Awesome Ascending written by Hubert Whitlow and published by Univ. of Tennessee Press. This book was released on 2008 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pearl Harbor has just been bombed, and thirteen-year old Blue Awesome Easterly yearns to grow up fast, join the Army Air Corps, and become a hero. But one-eyed Aunt Spook warns him: "Beware the light!" She knows, because "the swamp people told me while I was in a trance," that Blue Awesome is fated to see events from the past-revealed in flashes of light only he can see. "This light never dies," cautions Aunt Spook. "And it never forgets what it sees." Blue Awesome's parents operate their funeral parlor/telephone business out of their home, Welcome Hall, in deep south Home Free, a small village not far from Swamp Ha-Ha, an area as "rural as raw peanuts." Blue Awesome's mother, Ethyl, more or less runs the businesses by herself because his father, Poordaddy, teaches in his private, tuition-free Classic Academy for Young Men. The Easterlys are getting by fine until the commander of the new Army base asks them to secretly embalm a murdered African American officer. When word gets out, local vigilantes turn their world upside down. But that's just the half of it. Take a pinch of Gabriel García Márquez, a dollop of Riddley Walker, a touch of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, a smidgen of William Kotzwinkle-blend thoroughly, bake at high heat (swamp temperature would be best) and you have this entirely new confection, Blue Awesome Ascending. Prepare for a feast.