Swimming in the Volcano

Book excerpt: A vibrant portrait of love and politics in the tropics from the National Book Award–winning author: “the finest first novel I have read in many years” (William O’Rourke, Chicago Tribune). Winner of the National Book Award for First Fiction for Easy in the Islands, Bob Shacochis returns to the islands with Swimming in the Volcano, a “splendid first novel” that illuminates the beauty and life of the Caribbean (Library Journal). On the fictional island of St. Catherine, an American expatriate becomes unwittingly embroiled in an internecine war between rival factions of the government. Into this potentially explosive scene enters a woman he once loved and lost, but who remains a powerful temptation—one that proves impossible to resist. Both an enchanting love story and a sophisticated political novel about the fruits of imperialism in the twentieth century, Swimming in the Volcano is as brutal and seductive a novel as the world it evokes. “Scores of island people, from conspiring politicians to barbers on the beach, sprawl across the pages like oleander and hibiscus . . . each of [the book’s] scenes is expertly wrought.” —The New York Times Book Review