Edisto: A Novel

A twelve-year-old boy chronicles his coming of age on a rural strip of coast between Savannah and Charleston

simons Everson Manigault lives with his mother, an eccentric professor (known a the Duchess), on an isolated and undeveloped strip of South Carolina coast.  'convinced that her son can be a writer of genius, the Duchess has immersed Simons in the literary classics since birth and has given him free rein to gather material in such spots as the Baby  Grand, a local black nightclub.

Although possessed of a vocabulary and sophistication beyond his years, Simons feels the normal adolescent bewilderment about the behavior of his parents.  His conventional father, the Progenitor, has recently left the family in a dispute over Simon's upbringing and has moved to nearby Hilton Head, where he would like to see his son raised among the Orthodox surroundings of condominiums, country clubs, and private schools.  At the book's center is Taurus, an enigmatic father-surrogate who tutors the boy in the art of watching the world without presumption.