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.

--Kate Saundby, author of the Nublis Chronicles