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WHALE SEASON takes place between Christmas morning and New Year's in Whale Harbor, Florida -- a place where there are no whales, now or ever. Jesus loses a top-of-the-line RV to a previously hapless gambler, who should be with his girlfriend instead of risking his almost defunct RV business in a poker game with God. The girlfriend is drinking eggnog schnapps with the sheriff, who has loved her since they were in high school. The gambler's ex-wife is serving free Christmas breakfast to the men at the Dream Cafe, the local titty bar, which she inherited from her family. Over the course of that week, many crazy things happen. Jesus turns out to be a serial killer, in a former life a Cuban doctor who is really the child of Polish emigres. The gambler blows up his old RV, which lands him in the hospital, where he becomes Bee-Jesus . . . a story that is truly bizarre, but hey, it could happen. WHALE SEASON is an all-around bizarre book. The best way I can describe it is this: take Jean Shepherd's IN GOD WE TRUST and cross it with Lawrence Block's RANDOM WALK. Take the result of that and make sure it's written with the humor of Gar Haywood's GOING NOWHERE FAST and the lyrical language flow of James Crumley or James Lee Burke (not the darkness of those writers but the language skills). WHALE SEASON starts rather slowly, but after about the third chapter I just couldn't put it down. The characters are so real, and the situations in which they find themselves are compelling. Perhaps the average reader will never be in any one of those situations, but given the characters as written, not one of the circumstances is outside the realm of possibility. This is a book that's very difficult to categorize. Yes, there's a serial killer -- but it's not really just about him. Yes, there are love stories -- but it's not a romance. Yes, it's a funny book -- but it's more than that. It would be just as easy to shelve this under general fiction as under mystery. I think this is a book that will pop in and out of my head for a long time.
Reviewed by P. J. Coldren, May 2006
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