Decline of the Lawrence Welk Empire
A Novel
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4.5 • 2 Ratings
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
"It’s impossible not to be charmed by Edgar Donahoe (Publishers Weekly)," and he’s back for another misguided adventure. When Edgar is expelled from college for drunkenly bellowing expletives from a dorm window at 3:00 am, he hitchhikes to Colorado and trains as a cook. A postcard arrives from Edgar’s college buddy, Mountain Moses, inviting him to a Caribbean island. Once there Edgar cooks at the local tourist resort and falls in love with Mountain’s girl, Kate. He becomes embroiled in a love triangle and his troubles multiply as he is stalked by murderous island native Chollie Legion. Even Cinnamon Jim, the medicine man, is no help. Ultimately it takes a hurricane to blow Edgar out of this mess.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In deadpan first-person, Edgar, a 20-year-old pizza deliveryman in San Diego, tells within a few pages about his short stint at Humboldt State, hitching to Colorado Springs and landing a low-level job at a swanky hotel. When he receives a postcard from tropical Poisson Rouge Island that says simply, "I found your paradise, Johnny," Edgar joins his erstwhile college palthere. Teeming mosquitoes, housing that's either hideously expensive or impoverished, and the local zombies (which may be real) make the place less than idyllic, and when Edgar takes up with Johnny's girlfriend, their affair puts Edgar at the quarry end of a darkly comic version of The Most Dangerous Game. Ballantine (God Clobbers Us All) stretches young male aimlessness and foolishness to the breaking point, spiking the thin plot with excellent car crash descriptions: "Something explodes under the hood and a hot fog spews the windshield. We skid on the turn, hop through a pothole, thump over something that feels like a dog or a corpse, and crash softly into the bush, the spiky shadows of the leaves spreading darkly over us." It's a downmarket version of Ben Kunkel's Indecision, with less surety but real vibrancy.
