dark, clever tale of two brothers, a fishing tip, misconceptions, drugs and murder, South of the Pumphouse skillfully combines classic motifs of epic struggle and intelligent layers of imagery.
Like Les Claypool's music, the material is innovative, highly independent and excruciatingly though provoking,
We met Les Claypool when he visited the Tattered Cover Bookstore in Denver, You can listen to him talk about South of the Pumphouse here:
sitelink authorsontourlive. com/p if you're a big Les fan like me, you can hear the soundtrack as you read, this book shares a universe with the stories straight out of the lyrics of Primus and all of Les' various side projects, The book doesn't miss a beat,
i really want Les to write more, a mind like his is fascinating, Voornamelijk gekocht vanwege mijn voorliefde voor de muzikant die dit geschreven heeft, Niet heel bijzonder, wel leuk om te lezen, This is a simply mapped, scene oriented novel with a very sparse amount plot action, What moved this story forward was the character of the area Berkeley, the San Pablo Bay and the town of El Sobrante, This being the case, my main points of enjoyment with this novel come from beinga swamp redneck whoattended UC Berkely withdecades of Primus lyrics in my head.
So, the sense of familiarity allowed me to enjoy a novel that could slow down and take its time to flesh out wellworded descriptions of scene and character before moving to a fast crush of plot action near the very end.
While I think many bookworms will take too little away from it, I'll definitely be reading it again, This is an entertaining enough of a book, Engaging and fun at times, a bit draggy in others, I'm not really seeing the comparison to The Old Man amp The Sea that the publisher seems to be pushing, other than for the fishing but I don't think that's a huge point to stick on.
The writing is decently executed and the characters are fun to read, The dynamic between the characters is pretty great although the dialogue feels a bit overcooked at some points, The story takes a good turn at the end and the last third of the book was definitely more interesting than the first two thirds.
I don't know if this book would have gotten the same attention had it come from an unknown author instead of Les Claypool but again, kind of pointless to speculate on that.
It's a quick read and it's enjoyable, This Californian novel has the brothers Earl and Ed as main characters, A days fishing on San Pablo Bay is the focus of the novel, It is something of a reunion for the brothers after meeting up briefly at their fathers recent funeral, They both share a passion for angling especially the pursuit of sturgeon, The legendary tales of successful and failed attempts to land one of these, and the childhood reminiscences centered on this elusive marine specimen, make up a large part of their field of reference and is inextricably bound to the fond memories they both cherish of their late father an angler of note and the man responsible for cultivating their love of fishing.
Everything would have been perfect out on the water, except for the fact that the brothers glorious day of sun, beer and baited rods turns the slightest bit sour by the inclusion of foulmouthed Donny Earls friend, and a dyedinthewool bigot and selfproclaimed sexual athlete who tormented Ed when they were children.
And maybe the consumption of some magic mushroom caps by Ed at a point prior to departure was not such a good idea after all.
As the day unfolds with Donny treating the brothers to pornographic tales of his bedroom antics while flaunting his homophobia and racial intolerance like a proudlyworn badge, Eds hallucinogenic perception of the world around him including some philosophical conversation with a grass shrimp in the bait bucket is not quite enough to ward off his growing dislike for the obnoxious Donny.
The tale gains momentum along an evertightening arc until that fateful moment when Earl makes a startling discovery in Donnys cooler,
I dont know anything about author Les Claypool besides the biographical details provided on the back cover that tell about his accomplishments as a bassist and frontman for various bands and as a collaborator with people like Henry Rollins.
Be that as it may, but I think Im in a position to add the profession of fullfledged novelist to his musical talents, I do this without reservation based on my considerable pleasure in reading his debut novel, This is not superior literature by any means and certainly not intended as such, but it makes for a damned entertaining read, laced as it is with humour and irony and not shy to bring on the lewd stuff in loads.
Fainthearted readers should beware.
This book gets five because its a book that has made me laugh the hardest so far, Its not funny the whole time, but is downright entertaining from front to back, All the reviews saying this is a graphic book must be written from those who believe that every waking minute of life needs to be politicallycorrect.
As a Primus fan, I was going to read this no matter what, Not bad for a debut novel, One character is just exceedingly crude, which is a bit tough to get through at times, References a'plenty to the songs "Fish on" and " The ol' diamond back sturgeon",
I don't imagine there's much of a market for this outside of Les Claypool fans, The claims of Hemingwayesque are a stretch, A dark, clever tale of two brothers, a fishing trip, drugs, and murder, this novel skillfully combines classic motifs of epic struggle and intelligent layers of imagery, reminiscent of The Old Man and the Sea, and the raw, tweaked perspective of a Hunter S.
Thompson novel.
Les Claypool established himself as the most original rock bassist in thes, as front man for the hit band Primus.
They toured the world with groups like Janes Addiction, Public Enemy, and U, Claypool penned the theme song to TV's South Park, and has guested on albums by many other artists, including Jerry Cantrell and Tom Waits.
Got this book not only because I love Primus, but mostly because Ive always found Les Claypool to be such an interesting man and this book for me was a nice trip inside Less brain.
In addition to being an amazing bassist, the guy can write, Hes wonderfully descriptive in his scenarios and characters and really knows how to paint a mental picture with his words, He kept his storyline simple, A bit too simple for my preference, but it was easy to follow and broken up nicely flashbacks and other explanations, The heavy usage of profanity, sexuality and drug use references might bother some, I found it amusing. The biggest annoyance to me was the constant usage of the word “bro” in the characters dialogue, Im assuming thats the way Les envisioned his characters speech based on their personalities, but I still found it annoying, The little twist at the end is very nice, Predictable for some, but nevertheless very nice, Overall this is a good fiction read, I hope Les Claypool pens another book in the future! temevo il peggio, temevo un libro pubblicato giusto perchè l'autore è sia pure in un altro campo che non la letteratura famoso e poteva garantire un buon numero di copie vendute.
mi sono imbattuto nella migliore delle ipotesi: una versione sione letteraria dei personaggi delle canzoni del buon les, come in quei brani i personaggi sono quasi dei freak sia i rozzi earl e donny, sia pure il mite ed che in una situazione altrimenti normale una battuta di pesca: vecchia ossessione dai tempi di "sailing the sea of cheese", se non erro passano il tempo a raccontarsi rozze storie di vita, bizzarre opinioni e in un caso vivere assurdi trip psichedelici grazie ad una manciata di funghi allucinogeni, fino ad un finale che non ti aspetti.
e che stile: secco, privo di fronzoli, a cui bastano pochi termini per rendere perfettamente l'atmosfera di un luogo o il carattere di un personaggio.
peccato per certi errori tra le pagine, sennò era perfetto, I'm so glad I didn't read the synopsis and had no idea what this book would be about, other than sturgeon fishing, I dig Les Claypool and his songs, His book was equally enjoyable, He writes his characters vividly, This was a quick but wild ride, A quick read but a slow burn, Claypool does a great job of setting the scene for a tense day on the water that culminates in a gleefully ironic twist, I'd been meaning to give this 'ere book a read for a while now, but it went by completely forgotten in the crazy year of reading that was '.
Now I've finally read the damn thing, and I feel I wasn't missin' much, Its got its charms, but its not a terribly wellwritten story, And while the climax is not only surprising and thrilling, the ending manages to cheapen it with a silly twist so obvious I made the mistake of assuming it couldn't possibly be the way the book ends.
But this is a book by Les Claypool, a man I have a deep reverence for, Characters and locations from his extensive catalog of music make neat cameos, and my heart fluttered every time I recognized a name, Wouldn't recommend this book unless you're a fan of Les's, or have a soft spot for good ol' boys and tweakers alike, decent effort. glad i read it about the tone i expected from old les, like much of his music it was lacking in depth and beauty, unlike much of his music there wasn't enough style, fun, or inventiveness so that you didn't care, Am I crazy to find Les Claypool sexy for writing a book like this I have always wanted to write a book about El Sobrante, having grown up in a town just ten to fifteen minutes from it, and having two cousins who were raised there.
I think I lived in El Sobrante
in a past life, I've always felt this deep connection to it, I got a kick out of the references to the local spots like El Rancho and the San Pablo Reservoir, . . where, in fact, I went fishing with my father as a child, I devoured the book in about two days of lying on my living room loveseat, and while I did feel that it dragged in the middle, I never lost interest.
Quite a feat, I might add, . . considering I have literary ADHD, .