From Publishers Weekly
A group of stock car racing fans embarks on a bus tour of Southern speedways—seven states in eight days—as a tribute to legendary NASCAR champion Dale Earnhardt in this meandering road novel modeled after the Canterbury Tales. Harley Claymore, a down-and-out race car driver who yearns to be reinstated, is a tour guide with an encyclopedic knowledge of spectacular races and risk-loving drivers. His "Where are you folks from?" introduces a diverse group of tour participants: Karen and Shane plan to be married at the first stop, where the bride's Wiccan mother will be waiting, and the groom will try to come to terms with his grief over the death of his hero, Dale, in the 2001 Daytona 500; longtime fan Jim, married 47 years to Arlene, hopes her incipient Alzheimer's won't spoil their enjoyment of the tour; Bill Knight, an Episcopalian priest in smalltown Canterbury, N.H., is chaperone for a dying orphan who was selected for a Last Wish trip; Nebraska resident Ray has proudly plowed his alfalfa field with a giant three (Dale's racing number). Veteran McCrumb provides a lively illustration of the cult of celebrity and offers instructive speculation about the human need for heroes. Minimal drama and suspense, however, will make this best suited to those who thrill at the sight of a memorial number three. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
Harley Claymore has spent a lifetime on the fringes of the NASCAR circuit. (He did win a race at Daytona, but not that race.) Certain that he has reached the hangin'-on-by-my--fingernails stage of his career, he accepts a job as a guide for a Dale Earnhardt Sr. memorial tour sponsored by Bailey Travel. Among the passengers on this peculiar pilgrimage are a clergyman accompanying an ill boy on a "make-a-wish" journey and three middle-aged women vacationing together, one of whom is an unabashed Earnhardt devotee. Rounding out the group is a couple who will be married on one of the tracks where Earnhardt drove to glory. Though there is plenty of stock-car minutiae scattered throughout, this isn't a novel about Dale Earnhardt Sr.; rather, it's about the way that regular folks sometimes use sports heroes to sustain their faith in their own ability to achieve what they want in life. In her celebrated ballad series, McCrumb uses the folkways of Appalachia to express the resiliency of the human spirit. In a very different context, she accomplishes the same goal here. Wes Lukowsky
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
St. Dale FROM THE CRITICS
Publishers Weekly
A group of stock car racing fans embarks on a bus tour of Southern speedways-seven states in eight days-as a tribute to legendary NASCAR champion Dale Earnhardt in this meandering road novel modeled after the Canterbury Tales. Harley Claymore, a down-and-out race car driver who yearns to be reinstated, is a tour guide with an encyclopedic knowledge of spectacular races and risk-loving drivers. His "Where are you folks from?" introduces a diverse group of tour participants: Karen and Shane plan to be married at the first stop, where the bride's Wiccan mother will be waiting, and the groom will try to come to terms with his grief over the death of his hero, Dale, in the 2001 Daytona 500; longtime fan Jim, married 47 years to Arlene, hopes her incipient Alzheimer's won't spoil their enjoyment of the tour; Bill Knight, an Episcopalian priest in smalltown Canterbury, N.H., is chaperone for a dying orphan who was selected for a Last Wish trip; Nebraska resident Ray has proudly plowed his alfalfa field with a giant three (Dale's racing number). Veteran McCrumb provides a lively illustration of the cult of celebrity and offers instructive speculation about the human need for heroes. Minimal drama and suspense, however, will make this best suited to those who thrill at the sight of a memorial number three. Agent, Dominick Abel. (Feb. 18) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.
Library Journal
Wave the checkered flag, 'cause this one's headed for the victory lane! McCrumb (Ghost Riders) gambles on a Canterbury Tales-inspired novel about secular sainthood set in the world of NASCAR. Led by a washed-up stockcar driver, 13 pilgrims from diverse backgrounds set out in August 2002 on a Dale Earnhardt bus tour. In roughly a week's time, the group visits each major southeastern speedway, leaving memorial wreaths for "Number 3" en route. As the transforming trip progresses, the stories of this faithful group, Dale, other legendary drivers, and the history and lore of stock car racing are shared. Earnhardt, like Elvis and Princess Di, drew millions to him in life; his death in February 2001 only served to increase his magnetism as the embodiment of the American dream. McCrumb's latest should attract a large and varied following, just as NASCAR does, now one of the top three U.S. sports. [See also the Q&A with McCrumb, above left.-Ed.]-Rebecca Kelm, Steely Lib., Northern Kentucky Univ., Highland Heights Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
In a career marked by strange, wonderful stories (Ghost Riders, 2003, etc.), McCrumb offers her strangest yet: a modern-day Canterbury Tales with Dale Earnhardt replacing Thomas a Becket. The Number Three Pilgrimage, as Bailey Travel bills it, takes 13 pilgrims, all Harry Bailey could get racetrack tickets for, on a journey through the NASCAR strongholds of the Southeast-racetracks steeped in the lore of the Intimidator and his contemporaries-under the wing of former journeyman driver Harley Claymore. Harley hopes to use the tour to climb back into the circuit. Wall Street broker Terence Palmer is using his late father's tickets for himself and Sarah Nash, his dad's neighbor, to connect with the faraway parent he never knew. Shane McKee's taking advantage of the trip to get hitched under Dale's ghostly eye. Rev. Bill Knight is squiring ten-year-old Matthew Hinshaw, whose dying wish the trip is fulfilling. Judge Bekasu Holifield, her thrice-married sister Justine, and their cousin Cayle Warrenby are just out for a good time, though Cayle's convinced that Earnhardt came back from the grave to fix her ailing car on an isolated stretch of North Carolina roadway. In between pauses to lay memorial wreaths at Bristol, Martinsville, Mooresville, Rockingham, Lowe's, Talladega, Atlanta, Daytona and Darlington, they swap capsule summaries of their lives and brief testimonials to their hero. "I've always thought saints must be like that," Knight recalls a friend telling him, and Sarah adds, "Never knew the worth of him until he died." McCrumb has much to say about secular sainthood, but her fondness for aphorism and her split allegiance to her pilgrims and the object of their veneration work againstEarnhardt's, or even Chaucer's, momentum. Still, this book of moments is required reading for anybody who still mourns Number Three-or who wonders what the fuss is about.
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