A hilarious, poignant, and twisted novel by a writer best described as a young, southern John Irving. Mississippi teenager Noel Weatherspoon is many things: an unwitting clairvoyant, an extreme asthma sufferer, a ghost-seeing insomniac, an endearing dopehead, a wanna-be erotic photographer, a would-be baseball star, a regretful vandal, a lamentable virgin who becomes an older woman's sex toy, and a never-accused, somnambulant mercy-killer. Noel is haunted by the specter of the boy he knocked into a coma while sliding into home in Little League and by the spirit of his father who died in Vietnam. He is equally haunted by his embarrassing failures with girls and his own dark secrets. The surely damned Noel must navigate all manner of bible thumpers, from gossiping Baptists, Pentecostal cousins, born-again Christians, and righteous Methodists to a stepfather who bears an uncanny resemblance to Billy Graham. Funny and dark, Rides of the Midway is a brilliantly told story about a boy whose life spins completely out of control.
- ISBN10 039304971X
- ISBN13 9780393049718
- Publish Date 8 February 2001
- Publish Status Inactive
- Out of Print 21 August 2012
- Publish Country US
- Imprint WW Norton & Co
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 320
- Language English