Some Kind of Ending

In a stream-of-consciousness prose style this story offers postmodern adventures of an unlikely fisherman. Set in Reagan's 1980s, the book erratically tells the story of a medley of down-and-out characters trying to earn some cash in the North Pacific fishing industry. Our hero wakes up in a field in Seattle, ready to live off the city's accommodating hobo infrastructure. He soon learns that there's money to be made farther north fishing the rough seas off the Aleutian Islands, where even vagabonds like him can find enough work to finance their debaucheries. But the riches of the sea attract other aimless wanderers: an assortment of characters descend upon the Emerald City, looking for the American dream on the nation's final, and quickly shrinking, frontier. The sea may seem a romantic place for a wayward soul, but the realityof the ocean proves to be something quite different. The plot lurches forward with a drunken logic and an addict's awareness of the passage of time. It's characters are drifters, hobos, sailors, transients: people for whom nothing matters so much as the next meal, high, or sexual encounter. A gonzo version of Moby-Dick---unapologetically manic and original. Chaos ensues.