Whirlaway

Poe Ballantine

Paperback

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Eddie Plum, who insists he's been unjustifiably committed to a California psychiatric hospital, manages to finally escape after fourteen years of incarceration to start his life anew.

On the run, he holes up in a sheltered barrio on a bluff above the Pacific Ocean owned by his wealthy but unsympathetic father. Here he meets Sweets, the telepathic dog, laments the loss of Sofia, his madhouse lover, and plays the horses at the Del Mar Racetrack. Eventually he meets up with an old friend, Shelly Hubbard, a fellow horseplayer, record collector/dealer, and hardcore loner, who tells him about his brother, Donny, dead at the age of eighteen from a tragic dive off a thirty-foot La Jolla sea cliff known as the Clam.

Eddie discovers a family secret and wants to help, but by then he's already embroiled in the psychotic incident with the Tijuana prostitutes, the madhouse lover, and the police, who are hot on his tail. Mr. Toad's Wild Ride has nothing on Whirlaway, a hilarious novel of escaped mental patients, horseplayers, and record collectors.

Book Details

Publisher: Hawthorne Books
Publish Date: Apr 3rd, 2018
Pages: 191
Language: English
Edition: undefined - undefined
Dimensions: 9.00in - 5.60in - 0.60in - 0.60lb
EAN: 9780997068399
Categories: • Literary• Humorous - Dark Humor• Absurdist

About the Author

Ballantine, Poe: -

Poe Ballantine currently lives in Chadron, Nebraska. The documentary of the same title as Ballantine's memoir, Love and Terror on the Howling Plains of Nowhere, won the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival Hot Doc Award as well as the Big Sky award, given to the film that captures the spirit of the American West. Michael Moore included filmmaker Dave Jannetta's Love and Terror on the Howling Plains of Nowhere at the Traverse City Film Festival and the documentary was also a finalist for the Philadelphia Geek Award. To view the trailer, click here: https: //youtu.be/eBvBKa4KJpg. Ballantine's work has appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, The Sun, Kenyon Review, and The Coal City Review. In addition to garnering numerous Pushcart and O. Henry nominations, Mr. Ballantine's work has been included in the anthologies The Best American Short Stories 1998 and The Best American Essays 2006.

Praise for this book

Hoping that the secret of Poe Ballantine stays secret no longer.--SCOTT F. PARKER "MINNEAPOLIS STAR TRIBUNE"

For readers who prefer madcap to claptrap, quixotic pranks to neurotic angst, Poe Ballantine is a literary tonic: Bittersweet, potent, and peculiarly entertaining. Poe Ballantine is the most soulful, insightful, funny, and altogether luminous "under-known" writer in America. He knocks my socks off, even when I'm barefoot.--TOM ROBBINS "Tibetan Peach Pie"

Like David Sedaris, he is an American outsider with insane comedic and storytelling gifts.--MARION WINK "Above Us Only Sky and NPR Correspondent"

Ballantine's writing is secure insecurity at its best, muscular and minimal, self-deprecating on the one hand, full of the self's soul on the other.--LAUREN SLATER "Lying"

Whirlaway is a fever dream of my favorite things: horse racing, records, booze, insanity, and women. What a strange and crazed comedic ride. Ballantine's writing is like no other.--WILLY VLAUTIN "The Free"

Let me tell you somethin' true, people: Poe Ballantine is the best American writer alive that you've definitely never heard of.--SETH MARKO "THE BOOK CATAPULT"

If you see [Poe Ballantine's] name in a byline, read it.--JACK WATERS "UVU REVIEW"

Poe Ballantine is brilliant.--CHERYL STRAYED "Wild"

Ballantine walks a wry tightrope here, imbuing his debauched characters with the drunken nobility of Steinbeck's "boys," not to mention a healthy dose of gonzo angst. What results is a wanton misadventure that often flips from laughter to tears on a dime. Bukowski and his ilk might appreciate this oddball version of the hero's journey, soaked in beer and melancholia.-- "Kirkus Reviews"