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In this visceral and disturbing
novel about an era that many of today's politicians, i.e. George Bush Jr.,
would just as soon forget, Larry Bailey attempts to match through language
what William Hogarth accomplished with his paintings of the unromantic
underside of eighteenth century English society, and he succeeds
brilliantly.
Set on the
Pacific
Coast
and filled with poetic, visual imagery, Wake of the Whale is a haunting,
mystic tale whose less-than-heroic narrator, Lucky, is a latter day Ishmael
in search of his ultimate fate. As he weaves his uncertain way through a
Hogarthian modern dance encompassing whale watchers, the rich and not so
rich, rock concert promoters, strippers, politicians and the like, Lucky's
laconic, sometimes tongue in cheek account of the post-Vietnam drug culture
spares no one, least of all himself; and when he finds his captain and his
fate he comes full circle in an outcome worthy of Melville himself.
Even though Larry Bailey portrays
his less than sterling characters unflinchingly, warts and all, their tragic
gallantry makes us care. That is not only the mark of a master storyteller,
it's what makes Wake of the Whale a must read.
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