The Castaway Lounge
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
Set in a busted Massachusetts mill town circa 1986, The Castaway Lounge is the story of Jackson "Applejack" Thibedeaux. Cocaine dealer, womanizer, and tough-guy-for-hire, Applejack is weary of the wrong life and trying to leave it behind. But all bets are off when a young pole dancer ends up dead during an after-hours party with a local businessman and politician, and our hero risks going to prison or worse by setting in motion a plan to bring the killers to justice.
Along the way, Applejack's fiancéeis abducted by a flying saucer and she goes on the Oprah Winfrey show to talk about her experience, a bible-thumping arsonist burns down the titty bar, and a disturbing love triangle forms when a washed-up guitar player seduces his teenage son's girlfriend. To further complicate matters, upon learning of her demise, the dead pole dancer's father and twin brother's thunder down from the high hills with violent intentions.
It is a dark world that these people live in, but from time to time slivers of light manage to break through. At its core, the book is an exploration of one man's struggle to choose between right and wrong. And the fact that sometimes the right choice requires the ultimate sacrifice.
Jon Boilard is the author of A River Closely Watched, a finalist for the Northern California Book Award. Born and raised in Western Massachusetts, Boilard lives in San Francisco, California.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Trapped in a western Massachusetts mill town in the mid-1980s, the hard-boiled characters in Boilard's latest speak with the loquaciousness of Elmore Leonard's best and act with the viciousness of the thugs patrolling Frank Miller's Sin City. Applejack is a backroom fighter and muscle for hire, but after a botched job for the owner of the local strip club, The Castaway Lounge, which results in the death of a young girl, he tries to leave some of his troubled past behind. Along with Suzanne, one of the Castaway's newest dancers, he intends to leave a troubled past behind, yet violence follows Applejack, and it isn't long before both the police and the dead girl's angry family are investigating her case, leaving Applejack with the realization that he has to make things right before moving on. Filled with sex, drugs, booze, and alien abductions, Boilard (A River Closely Watched) crafts a page-turner that adheres to the tried and true tropes of the genre tough guys, easy women, fractured heroes. Amid leaps in time and playful character names such as Boy Country and Two Beer Dick, perhaps the highlight is the numerous side stories and asides, which have no direct impact on the main narrative but result in a richer, more authentic story. The reader may want to take a shower after finishing the novel, however.