Now middle aged and in poor health, widower and grandfather Corey takes a solo trip home to Freeport, the Texan town he grew up in. But that trip turns out to represent much more than a poignant journey for old times' sake.
With memories of his childhood prompted by the familiar Texan landscape, Corey narrates the story of the 1950s summer that changed his life forever.
Dismissed and beaten by a frustrated and violent father and effectively abandoned by an emotionally fragile and obsessively religious mother, the teenage Corey turns to his grandfather for comfort.
Then his grandfather is diagnosed with terminal cancer.
As events unfold, it becomes clear that this is just one of several life-changing events to happen to Corey that summer.
His parents' marriage falls apart, his mother's mental health declines and his father becomes increasingly angry, as a beloved father and grandfather slides towards death.
Meanwhile, Corey's best friend lives locally in a violent and dysfunctional household, until the ultimate tragedy strikes and Destin is whisked away to live with relatives.
Faced with the loss of his closest friend and imminent loss of his grandfather, Cory focuses his attention on a very special project, a present for his father. A present intended to win his father's love.
But it doesn't.
And Corey's good intentions vanish into violence...
And that is when, strengthened by the wise counsel of his dying grandfather, Corey realizes that it is time to be his own person.
> "Edgerton's first novel shines with wisdom." - Publishers Weekly
"Highly recommended for public libraries and for academic libraries supporting writing programs." - Library Journal
"Edgerton's skillful writing and characterizations invite the reader to share Corey's horrors and hopes, to try to understand unreasonable motives, to care about the outcome." - Austin American-Statesman
"While this book deals with violence and cruelty, it is ultimately a definition of gentleness and love. It is a good story; it is a good book." - The Indianapolis Star
"...this first novel reflects equally the author's respectable effort at expression, and its protagonist's expressive struggle. Big on heart." - Booklover's Magazine
"Edgerton is not just another stunning narrative talent, he is an important narrative authority - a master of his or any other generation." -Vincent Zandri, author of As Catch Can
"It is heart-felt, heart-rending, compulsively readable and wise." -Douglas Glover, author of The Life and Times of Captain N.
"Les Edgerton's The Death of Tarpons is a big-hearted and beautiful story of love and death and the fact that we all grow up and away, for better and worse, from who and what we once were. A fine book, well worth the reading." -Bret Lott, author of Jewel
"Edgerton takes on one of the hoariest of projects, the family chronicle, but he explores individual characters and domestic relations in so particularized, so eloquent and-in the very best sense-so idiosyncratic a way, that we almost feel we are treading such ground for the first time." -Sydney Lea, author of A Place of Mind
