Mattie Rigsbee is the main character in Clyde Edgerton's southern style novel, Walking Across Egypt. Mattie is a seventy-eight year old widow with two middle-aged children. Living alone in a small house, she makes sure that everything is taken care of. She cooks, cleans, mows the lawn, and takes up numerous responsibilities with the church. She is a very caring person with many friends and a family that loves her dearly. At the time this novel takes place, Mattie is at a turning point in her life. Confusion disturbed her, because the things that people are telling her are not the words that she is ready or willing to hear. Although begins to displa