Flying Fish
By Vern Hobbs
Aberdeen Bay; 332 pages; $15.95

At first glance, “Flying Fish,” appears to be yet another quirky Florida novel in the vein of Carl Hiassen and Tim Dorsey. But while it is peopled with suitably unusual characters (including a ghost), Vern Hobbs’ debut novel is something much more

Set in the fictional “hardscrabble fishing village” of Juniper Key, where a ban on fishing has been implemented, “Smiley” Randolph, the reserved editor of the town’s weekly newspaper, is caught in the middle of the town’s struggle to survive. Guided by the ghost of a long dead community icon, Smiley tries to divest the locals of their obstinacy to hear out two unorthodox strangers who may have some solutions to their plight. Can Smiley overcome his limitations to help save Juniper Key? What’s more, can the people of Juniper Key overcome their prejudices and open themselves up to change? These uncertainties are at the core of Hobbs’ splendid, inventive tale.

Hobbs, a Cape Canaveral-based freelance writer, avid sailor, and longtime Resident contributor, could have embraced the easy Hiassen/Dorsey approach for “Flying Fish,” but opted for something eminently more satisfying. “Fish” does have its fair share of intrigue — there are some delicious mysteries to unravel and plenty of behind-the-scenes political machinations — but the key to the novel’s success lies in Hobbs’ respect for simplicity and skill at characterization. It’s almost a given that Juniper Key’s inhabitants would be eccentric, but Hobbs gives them warmth and more flesh, which imbues them with a timeless, almost Dickensian presence. More resonant archetypes than straw-stuffed caricatures, Luraleen, Ginny, Polly, Rodney… all of them, however minor, linger long after the book ends. Smiley himself is a fantastic character; we grow with him as each event unfolds and root for his victory. Moreover, you root for the lovable people of Juniper Key who develop in tandem.

Hobbs also evokes the quintessence of Florida life with gentle mastery. Along with its characters, Juniper Key comes to glorious life through creative suggestion, much like Steinbeck’s Cannery Row, a place that’s eternal as it is inchoate.

Add to these qualities a gripping, multi-armed plot, and you have that rare summer novel — one that keeps you turning its pages and provokes thought. We can’t wait to hear more from Vern Hobbs… and Smiley Randolph. — PTB

Flying Fish is available for purchase through Amazon.com. Visit Aberdeen Bay online at: www.aberdeenbay.com.

Book Review: The Long Song by Andrea Levy
• Reviewed by Mark James •

The Long Song
Andrea Levy
Farrar, Straus and Giroux; 320 pages; $26

July, the narrator of “The Long Song,” warns early on that if you cannot find interest in her tale, “then be on your way, for there are plenty books to satisfy if words flowing free as the droppings that fall from the backside of a mule is your desire.” This seems a bit contradictory given the windiness of the warning, especially for a novel of this title. Fortunately Andrea Levy prunes the “mule droppings” from this tale about a Jamaican slave’s journey to freedom and fulfillment.

July tells the story to her son in her later years. Set in Jamaica in the early 1800s, July is the result of overseer Tam Dewar’s rape of her mother Kitty. She is taken from her mother by Caroline Mortimer, the overweight sister of Amity Plantation’s owner. July, who Caroline insists on calling Marguerite, serves almost as a toy for the mistress; that is until the Christmas Uprising, an actual slave revolt that shocked England and hastened emancipation in the British Empire.

Caroline fears for her safety and abandons the plantation while her brother fights the uprising. July and a freeman named Nimrod take advantage of the unguarded house and tumble into the “massa’s” bed. Thomas arrives nine months later, is given to a white family, and taken to England where he receives a formal education. He takes over a printing business he brings back to Jamaica many years later, takes in the woman he believes is his mother and urges her to preserve her story for future generations.

The slaves have been freed in the intervening years. July falls in love with white overseer Robert Goodwin, becomes his lover, and bears his daughter. This seems an odd coupling for an ex-slave, but many see the future through their children, and believe the only way to escape the legacy of slavery in Jamaica is to breed them white, from mulatto to quadroon to mustee to mustiphino. For the “mustiphino’s child with a white man for a papa, will find each day greets them no longer with a frown, but welcomes them with a smile, as they at last stride within this world as a cherished white person.”

July switches between third person narration for her younger self and first person narration for her older self, and it is not until about halfway through the book that we discover the narrator and the main character are the same person. This ploy adds a little confusion some may call mystery, but Levy does not appear to be courting mystery. It is also told as a memoir, but July recants portions of her tale with the excuse that she is telling it as she wishes it had been. Preserving her memories seems to serve as her forgiveness of her owner, and thus as her absolution. “It is at last complete,” she says near the end, as if the telling of her story has completed her life. It is a happy ending to a sad, but long song.

Book Review: The Executor by Jesse Kellerman
• Reviewed by Mark James •

The Executor
Jesse Kellerman
Putnam; 352 pages; $25.95

The dictionary informs us that an executor is someone who “executes” or “performs a duty or assignment” such as taking out the trash. It can also be someone who performs the dirty task of taking someone else’s life. The line between the two is a little blurry in Jesse Kellerman’s new novel that tracks the descent of a thirty-something Harvard graduate student who can’t seem to execute his studies. His doctoral dissertation on free will is in freefall, and his life is following close behind.

Joseph Geist has spent nearly eight years cultivating the persona of a rumpled philosophy professor. “It’s my nature to wonder. It’s who I am,” he tells us. But his Iranian girlfriend has grown tired of it all, and Geist opens with his dismissal from her apartment and her life. To make matters worse, funding for his research has been cut off, and he finds himself bouncing from couch to couch. Relief is found when he answers an ad from someone desiring “intellectual conversation.” Alma Spielman is an aging Austrian woman seeking conversational company for a few hours each day. She traveled the world, never married, and never had children. She also coincidentally pursued, but never completed, a philosophy degree.

Alma suggests that Joseph move into a vacant room in her house when she discovers his circumstances, and an emotional bond soon develops. Joseph discovers that her only other contacts with the outside world are through her lawyer, doctor, a Romanian maid who may or may not understand English, and a ne’er-do-well nephew who is constantly asking her for money. Joseph guides the reader through this relationship maze in an unhurried, almost nonchalant voice. It is what it is — that is until Alma dies and leaves Joseph much of her fortune, provided he completes his dissertation within two years.

“The Executor” is not a thrilling page-turner, but it is difficult to put down. Kellerman lures you into Joseph’s psyche until you almost feel you were him, or at least hoping that he overcomes all the bad luck. He stumbles a bit when the nephew tries to collect his due after Alma dies. Bad things happen, and Kellerman switches to a second-person narration. It provides a sense of surrealism (i.e., “You pick up the trash. You take it to the curb.”), as if Joseph were acting in a trance. But the narration shift is cumbersome, especially given the ridiculousness of Joseph’s behavior. Kellerman fortunately reverts back to first-person narration when Joseph comes to his senses and begins behaving like a responsible adult for the first time in the story.

There are no unexecuted plot lines in the end; everything is neatly packaged. Kellerman has a tendency to use obscure words (carrel; fungible), but his prose is fluid and easy to follow. Obscurations aside, “The Executor” is a good read, and leaves you looking forward to Kellerman’s next offering.

Let’s Ride: Sonny Barger’s Guide to Motorcycling

What is the world coming to? We have an unending war, the world economy on the brink of collapse, and now Sonny Barger writes a “How-To” book? Is this really the same Sonny Barger who is a founding member of the Hell’s Angels? The same Sonny who did time for… oh, never mind — this isn’t about Sonny; it’s about what it takes to become a lifelong motorcyclist, one of Sonny’s stated goals in writing this guide. To Sonny, a motorcyclist is a person who may not even own a car; a person who doesn’t just ride a bike to work when the weather is nice, but takes extended cross-country trips; someone who can have a relationship with an inanimate object — and his hope is to make you one.

Sonny knows bikes, and he gives you a good bit of the knowledge he’s gained over his 60 years of riding. He assumes the reader knows nothing, and goes over every nut and bolt and insurance policy and biker stereotype, beginning with his reasons for riding, from better gas mileage and the brotherhood (especially if you’re in a club), to the freedom of the road. He’s a “buy American” guy, but surprisingly not a Harley fan, and he thinks even less of Italian bikes. “If you must buy Italian, it’s best to stick to their guns and shoes…” he advises.

I’m not a rider, and what would have turned into a boring book for me was made palatable by Barger’s sense of humor. Unfortunately, Sonny appears to get a little bored himself about halfway through as his humor fades away. This also seems to be about the point where the proofreader quit (both grammar and spelling suffered, i.e. “there” versus “their”). These may seem like small transgressions, but not something you would expect from a reputable publisher. And does he really need to tell you to “get a metric tool set” if your bike “uses metric-sized bolts and nuts?” Even I know that. The evolution of motorcycle design provided an occasional relief from the mundane world of nuts and bolts. Of particular interest is how Harley Davidson “sold motorcycles that were worn-out antiques even when they were new.” But Barger stuck with Harleys because they were the best American bikes, until Victory came out with a better one in the mid 1980s.

This book is for the person who knows nothing about bikes, but wants to in a bad way. Barger states over and over that it takes dedication to be a rider. He talks of the brotherhood he feels through his membership in a “1%” club, and the dedication it takes to be a member, never mentioning that this club is the Hell’s Angels. That shouldn’t matter, but I would never have known of Sonny Barger if not for the Hell’s Angels. But again, the book is not about Sonny or the club he belongs to. It’s about what it takes to be a motorcyclist, and who better to write it than someone who has truly devoted his life to it.

Bangkok may well be on most people’s list of places to visit, but if you’re like me, it’s probably not within your budget. No worries, John Burdett’s series featuring Royal Thai Police detective Sonchai Jitpleecheep serves as a nice surrogate, whether you want the sex or the drugs, the tom yam gung, or simply the mystery of the Orient. “The Godfather of Kathmandu” is the fourth and most ambitious in the series, and features all the above.

All the novels begin with a bizarre murder, and Burdett doesn’t deviate here. The victim is a famous, but eviscerated American television producer who’s had his skull removed, and his frontal lobe apparently served up as his killer’s lunch — or dinner if you like. The coroner can’t quite determine the time of death, but does conclude that he probably died from the loss of blood, but not until lunch (or dinner) was completed. Such a sight may shock most, but it is nothing to Sonchai, who is preoccupied with the recent accidental death of his six-year-old son, and misses his ex-prostitute wife who ran away to a nunnery after the accident. To make matters worse, his boss, Chief of Police and top mobster Col Vikorn, has become enamored with the movie “The Godfather,” appointed Sonchai as his consigliere, and charged him with brokering a $40 million heroin deal with his chief adversary and a Tibetan guru who wants to use the money to invade China on the eve of the Beijing Olympics. There’s never a dull moment in Bangkok.

Sonchai is the son of a Thai prostitute and an American GI sired during the Vietnam War. Even though he is half farang (a foreigner, especially Caucasian, and sometimes a derogatory term), he is a devout Buddhist, and thinks that “farang suffer greatly from a disease called hypocrisy.” His religion leads him to examine his destiny as a drug dealer; his Buddhist side believes he was likely a dealer or user in a past life and may be doomed for all eternity to repeat. But his farang genetics provide a unique insight into the ways of westerners, and he uses this to uncover the twisted nuances of the murder, all while walking a fine line with money hungry heroin dealers.

“The Godfather of Kathmandu” encompasses almost the entire Asian continent. Sonchai travels to Kathmandu and Hong Kong, and he interviews Tibetans, Americans, Australians, and Chinese. He also manages to slip in historically accurate references to farang invasions of the area. Most of the action takes place in or near the Bangkok red light district, but it seems like the sex trade is only there to lend a touch of decadence. Considering the nature of the murder and the impending drug deal, the sex trade is disappointingly tame and ultimately unnecessary.

The narration is in the first person, and Sonchai assumes the reader is farang, explaining the nuances of Thai culture, even asking the reader questions from time to time. But he really seems to be asking as a means of reassurance that he is doing the right thing. Burdett doesn’t need to ask such questions — he scores again with “The Godfather of Kathmandu.” — Mark James

TORTILLA FLAT

John Steinbeck is one of a handful of American authors awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in the last century. He is perhaps best known for “The Grapes of Wrath,” and to a lesser extent, “Of Mice and Men.” While those novels are dramatic in nature, the lesser-known “Tortilla Flat” features a cast of lovable losers even Tom Joad could both laugh at and relate to.

The novel revolves around a group of men who spend most of their time looking for wine and two or three dollars rent to pay their friend Danny, who inherits two houses in the Tortilla Flat area of Monterey, California. Danny allows his friends to live in one — at least until they burn it down and move into the remaining house with him. Pilon, Pablo, Big Joe Portagee, and Jesus Maria are all ne’er-do-wells looking for an easy buck or gallon of wine, but their interest always lies in the well-being of others, particularly Danny.

“Tortilla Flat” is not so much a novel as a collection of stories. In one episode, Dolores “Sweets” Ramirez, a woman “whose eyes could burn behind a mist with a sleepy passion which those men to whom the flesh is important found attractive and downright inviting,” takes an interest in Danny. Danny succumbs to her wiles and “assaulted her virtue with true gallantry and vigor.” He “procures” a vacuum cleaner for her, even though she has no electricity, never mind that the vacuum cleaner has no motor. Sweets is proud of her appliance and can be seen sweeping her floor every day. She “did not neglect Danny,” who now spends every night at her house. His friends grow worried about him, and “reprocure” the vacuum cleaner to save Danny from this selfish woman.

Danny is the lone Caucasian, and a revered figure to the others. In their eyes, he has suffered much through the war and the bad luck that always befalls them. The story collection finally comes together as a book in the end when Danny falls into depression and his friends organize a party in his honor to cheer him up. Danny grows to superhuman size through the night, walks outside in the early morning, and engages in what is described as a monumental fight with an unknown being. No one witnesses the fight that he loses, but all the friends seem to recognize it as a fight for each of them. The story is set in the years immediately after World War I, and the characters are all veterans. Their daily grind is to find wine, but Steinbeck infuses his characters with a certain nobility by using Shakespearean dialogue: “where hast thou been?”; “art thou thirsty?” etc. Doth thou understand? It can be read on many levels — as an indictment of the treatment of war veterans, as a social commentary that is a ubiquitous Steinbeck theme, or as a simple tragicomedy.

“Tortilla Flat” was Steinbeck’s first critical and commercial success. It’s difficult on the surface to find any redeeming qualities in the characters, but the noblesse oblige that would come full force in Tom Joad and George are beginning to emerge. It’s a book that can be put down for a few months and picked up again without losing any of the flow — and one that should never be considered for a yard sale. — Mark James

Open: An Autobiography

Agassi is the youngest child of an Iranian emigrant and a secretary from Chicago. His father had been a boxer with Olympic aspirations in his home country, and learned to play tennis from Americans stationed there after World War II. He saw tennis as the family path to fame and fortune. André was the only one of his children that displayed an aptitude for success, and he drove him mercilessly. He was shipped off to the Bollettieri tennis academy in Florida where his talent was such that he was able to negotiate his way out of school in the ninth grade to become a full-time tennis player at the tender age of 13. He turned pro a few years later and experienced almost immediate success. The rest is history.

This is no sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll exposé of professional tennis. His subject is himself, and there is the disturbing revelation of drug use (recreational, not performance enhancing); his lying to avoid public exposure; his dislike of Boris Becker and Jeff Tarango, to whom he lost his first match at the age of eight (Tarango cheated on match point); the hairpiece that almost caused public humiliation in the French Open final, and his infatuation with Steffi Graf, his current wife. Agassi returns to the Tarango incident several times over the course of the book, seemingly unable to believe that Tarango would cheat. Yet he readily admits that he cheated on more than one occasion, from faked school exams to lying to the ATP about his drug use.

Agassi has been in the spotlight ever since he became a professional. He was flamboyant in a staid sport that abhors flamboyance. He dated movie stars and hobnobbed with the beautiful people who praised him, eventually marrying Brooke Shields in an ill-advised union. And all the while, he told anyone who would listen that he hated tennis. No one believed him. How could you hate the game and be one of its greatest players ever?

Agassi divulges his opinions with no thought of consequences. The only player who approaches friendship with him is Pete Sampras, but Agassi doesn’t pass up a chance to take a dig at him, ridiculing him as a cheap tipper.

“Open” is a confessional book with himself as the sole subject. Brooke Shields once told him that he was an “undeveloped person,” and it’s almost as if the book is part of his twelve-step program toward developing completely. Agassi unfortunately never reconciles his hatred of tennis with his success, an oversight that is disappointing. Perhaps he’s never reconciled it himself. He does, however, offer compelling insight into the mind of one of the best to ever play the game — whether he liked or not. — Mark James

The Humbling

Doesn’t Philip Roth realize that retirement is part of the American dream? At the ripe old age of 76, he’s recently released “The Humbling,” his 30th book and eighth this century, and he has another due for publication in a few months. His latest is the story of an aging actor who has lost his ability — thus the humbling. Could this be Roth foretelling his own artistic demise? Can he be serious?

The story opens with Simon Axler, celebrated stage actor, interpreter of Shakespeare, Ibsen, and Chekhov, having lost the art that brought him fame and fortune with a reputation as the “last of the best of the classical American stage actors.” “He’d lost his magic,” the narrator tells us in the opening sentence. Axler begins to contemplate suicide in the same fashion as Ernest Hemingway (coincidence?), his wife leaves him, and he ultimately checks himself into a hospital. While there, he meets Sybil Van Buren, a woman committed by her husband after she witnesses him molesting their young daughter. She tries to convince him to murder the husband, but he can’t be convinced, and Sybil fades away when Axler checks himself out after 26 days.

Simon retreats to a lonely but comfortable existence in his country house until Pegeen Mike Stapleford arrives — a woman 25 years his junior who had “lived as a lesbian since she was twenty-three,” and also happens to be the daughter of old friends. Axler even won the honor of selecting her name in a contest before her birth. What he sees now is not a lesbian, but a “lithe, full-breasted woman of forty.” A relationship — both physical and emotional — develops, and he begins to experience a rebirth of sorts. Pegeen becomes the muse he lost; he flirts with the thought of acting again, and considers fatherhood for the first time. Just when he feels life may be worth living, Pegeen abandons him and all is lost.

Roth has often been unfairly typecast as a chronicler of the Jewish experience in America. Many of his books are about Jews trying to fit into a non-Jewish society in a fashion that sometimes tends towards nihilism. In a broader context, his characters are just outsiders that could ultimately be any minority. Roth never identifies Axler as Jewish, but he is an outsider — an actor whose skill for losing himself in the roles he plays. Once he loses his art, he finds himself in the unfamiliar role of himself, an undeveloped character trying to fit in.

There is ultimately no point to this story, much as Simon Axler can find no point to his life without acting. It’s also a bit short for a novel, almost as if Roth ran out of inspiration and decided to just end it. But given his prolific output of the past decade alone, it is difficult to imagine that it is autobiographical in any way. Even with the brevity and the pointlessness, Roth’s prose is still enjoyable — the work of an author who has not lost the magic.  — Mark James

Breath
By Tim Winton

218 pages; Picador Press, 2008

ISBN-13: 978-0-312-42839-6

Taking breaths on a regular basis is a good thing, so it’s a little odd that Tim Winton’s novel “Breath” begins with a teenager who isn’t breathing at all. But Bruce “Pikelet” Pike, the paramedic first on the scene, recognizes what the boy has done, and that event sparks a reminiscence of his teenage years, a foreboding beginning to what’s billed as a coming-of-age story for a couple of Australian surfers. But as Pike looks back thirty-five years later, it doesn’t seem as if any of these characters ever came of age — and only a few survive.

The 12-year-old Pike discovers a mutual attraction to thrill-seeking with Ivan “Loonie” Loon, and the two are soon fighting for waves in the cold waters off the western Australian coast. Sando, the local legend, takes them under his wing and eventually pushes them into surfing some secret breaks only he knows about. But Pike realizes his limits when Sando takes them to Nautilus, a triple-overhead wave one mile offshore that breaks in three feet of water. Pike realizes he’s in over his head in more ways than one, and Sando mocks him as he stays in the channel, safely away from the impact zone. As he watches Loonie take off on a wave he can never make, Pike realizes that he is “after all, ordinary.” Sando then begins to cut him out of his extreme sessions, eventually heading out on Indo surf trips with Loonie for months at a time.

Pike feels abandoned, a feeling he shares with Sando’s wife Eva, a former extreme skier trying to recover from a career-ending accident. The expected happens when boy meets girl, and as with surfing, he soon finds himself addicted to her despite their age difference. Like her husband, Eva takes Pike under her wing on a journey of sexual awakening. But he discovers that her sexual proclivities can be just as deadly as Sando’s wave selections, as she pushes him to places an ordinary person like him doesn’t want to be.

Later, Loonie, Sando, and Eva all leave Australia, each chasing their version of the “perfect wave.” Pike is the only one who doesn’t embark on that journey, and Winton chooses to summarize the time between the departure of his three friends and the discovery of the dead teenager who begins the novel. The story essentially ends as a result, and you wonder if the teenage years were a catalyst for the true coming-of-age experienced in the intervening years.

“Breath” was originally published in 2008, and has recently been reissued in paperback. It’s set in the early ’70s before competition ruined the surf world when the “legends” were shadowy characters, not sponsored and spoiled media hams. There were no leashes, high-tech wetsuits or high-performance boards, just foam, fiberglass, and one or two fins. Winton does an excellent job of capturing both the exhilaration of riding waves and the fear that sometimes comes with it. He’s also equally adept at capturing sexual exhilaration — and sometimes fear (read the book!) — for both Pike and Eva. Both are flirtations with death that Pike chooses to avoid. Winton invites a comparison between surfing and sex, as well as a conclusion: they can be a lot of work, but well worth the effort. – Mark James