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Title: Swimming in the Volcano by Bob Shacochis ISBN: 0-8021-4131-5 Publisher: Grove Press Pub. Date: 10 May, 2004 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.00

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Average Customer Rating: 4.22 (9 reviews)

Rating: 4
Summary: 1st Installment in a Trilogy?
Comment: I'm a big Shacochis fan. I've devoured all of his work,and have had the good fortune to see him do a reading of 'Squirrelly's Grouper' down in Key West, several years ago. I loved this book, but, was told, at one point by the author himself,that it was the 1st installment in a trilogy. In fact, I was told the second book's working title was 'The Magnificence of All that Burns". As good as "Swimming in the Volcano' is,it begs for a follow up. What happens to Mitch? What happens to Issacs? What happens to Cassius Collymore? Perspiring minds want to know!

Rating: 5
Summary: Magical, Frightening and True
Comment: This book caused me to add Bob Shacochis' name to the list of authors whose prose is absolutely brilliant--sometimes even a bit blinding, as some other reviewers have suggested, but it is superb writing nonetheless. Shacochis joins Reynolds Price, V.S. Naipaul, Annie Proulx and Don DeLillo in my pantheon of modern literary geniuses. Maybe "economy" was not one of the author's strong suits when he wrote "Swimming in the Volcano," but to me this is an absolutely trivial objection when weighed against the power of his language and the unflinching accuracy of his observations.

Unnecessary verbosity and flashy writing are literary sins, to be sure, but Shacochis doesn't commit them here. If "Swimming in the Volcano" is overwhelming at times, it's because the author is sounding depths of the human experience other writers don't dare to plumb. He is not indulging himself or merely playing with words. He gets into the minds of his subjects, Caribbean and American; and their voices, whether in Caribbean or American dialects, ring jarringly true.

I would rank this novel with Don DeLillo's "Underworld" for its rare synthesis of power and substance. Like DeLillo's masterpiece, "Swimming in the Volcano" has plenty of sound and fury, but signifies something profound about men and women and the lives they create.

Rating: 4
Summary: The Next New World.
Comment: "Swimming in the Volcano" follows in the brilliant footsteps of Graham Greene's library. This book is full of lush prose and novel metaphors, on top of a thought-provoking and involving story. By the way, you may want to have a dictionary nearby.