Decline of the Lawrence Welk Empire [Paperback]

Poe Ballantine (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 6, 2010

In this follow-up to God Clobbers Us All, Edgar Donahoe is back for another misguided adventure. When Edgar is expelled from college, he accepts his pal Mountain Moses’ offer to come to a Caribbean island. Once there, Edgar cooks at the local tourist resort and falls in love with Mountain’s girl, Kate. Embroiled in a dangerous love triangle and stalked by a mysterious local, he turns to medicine man Cinnamon Jim for help — but even the supernatural may not be able to save him now. Ballantine's quirky humor and captivating prose have drawn comparison to Kerouac and Bukowski, but his voice remains inimitably his own in this raucous, riveting adventure.

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In deadpan first-person, Edgar, a 20-year-old pizza deliveryman in San Diego, tells within a few pages about his short stint at Humboldt State, hitching to Colorado Springs and landing a low-level job at a swanky hotel. When he receives a postcard from tropical Poisson Rouge Island that says simply, "I found your paradise, Johnny," Edgar joins his erstwhile college palthere. Teeming mosquitoes, housing that's either hideously expensive or impoverished, and the local zombies (which may be real) make the place less than idyllic, and when Edgar takes up with Johnny's girlfriend, their affair puts Edgar at the quarry end of a darkly comic version of The Most Dangerous Game. Ballantine (God Clobbers Us All) stretches young male aimlessness and foolishness to the breaking point, spiking the thin plot with excellent car crash descriptions: "Something explodes under the hood and a hot fog spews the windshield. We skid on the turn, hop through a pothole, thump over something that feels like a dog or a corpse, and crash softly into the bush, the spiky shadows of the leaves spreading darkly over us." It's a downmarket version of Ben Kunkel's Indecision, with less surety but real vibrancy. (Aug.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

From Booklist

Ballantine's mildly amusing follow up to God Clobbers Us All(2004) features the further adventures of flaky but affable San Diego surfer Edgar Donahoe. This time Edgar's foul mouth gets him kicked out of college, and he decides to join his manic friend Mountain Moses on a remote Caribbean island. Relatively untouched by tourists, Poisson Rouge Isle is peppered with ramshackle residences and citizens every bit as irksome as the bugs. Soon, Edgar finds himself falling for Mountain's comely girlfriend, Kate, and fleeing Chollie Legion, a pintf size, machetef wielding local lunatic. When medicine man Cinnamon Jim can't conjure up a cure for his prickly predicaments, Edgar prays for a miracle. A hurricane approaching the isle may be just the break he needs. Ballantine aspires to the warped comic heights of Carl Hiaasen but falls short of the mark by a few tropical degrees. Edgar's supersize pal Mountain is the best of the author's creations: "He possesses a merry and absurd sweetness . . . combined with a body mass that can block out the sun." Allison Block
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 280 pages
• Publisher: Old Street Publishing Limited (April 6, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1905847696
• ISBN-13: 978-1905847693
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This Book is a Masterpiece, July 18, 2006

By 

Fred Said (Los Angeles, CA, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Decline of the Lawrence Welk Empire: A Novel (Edgar Adventures) (Paperback)

Poe Ballantine is my favorite living American writer. His first book, "Things I Like about America," convinced me that I had finally found the voice of our time. Then came the novel "God Clobbers Us All," which took my breath away. If you're sick of pretentious or formulaic or just plain boring fiction, give this man a try. "Decline of the Lawrence Welk Empire" is his best book yet, and I recommend it to anyone who craves a good read. Delicious and nutritious!

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Part Salinger, Part Palahniuk, All Awesomeness, November 10, 2006

By 

Christopher Wilson "Cartoonist" (Somerville, MA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Decline of the Lawrence Welk Empire: A Novel (Edgar Adventures) (Paperback)

I am not a big fan of most recent fiction. It is so often just whiny, self-aggrandizing crap that glorifies debauchery and pretends to carry a greater message. I picked this book off the shelf because the title and the cover are hard to dismiss. Reading the first page, even though the subject material seems conventional, it was immediately clear that I held a novel wholly different from any of the other two dozen recent novels I'd opened that day.

This book is a real story with real character, real fear, real consequences, and a real philosophy. It begins like The Catcher in the Rye but ends like Fight Club. It takes place in 1976, which seems perfectly poised between those two works, and almost feels like a transition between Holden Caulfield's tired hopelessness, and Tyler Durden's wreckless self-serving activism.

I adore this work, and if you have a soul, I suspect you will, too. This is literature.

5.0 out of 5 stars Where Is Paradise?, August 24, 2006

By 

Kimberly M. Jimenez "Kimberly Pathman" (miami, florida) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Decline of the Lawrence Welk Empire: A Novel (Edgar Adventures) (Paperback)

When a college in San Diego asks Edgar Donahoe to leave due to his drunk bellowing from his dorm room window at 4 in the morning, he resolves a decision to embark upon a journey which he has romanticized for some time. Throughout his journey his goal is to rid himself of the corruption of America by his discovery of paradise. Until he received a postcard from his best friend Mountain, he never had a destination in mind. With the discovery of Poisson Rouge, Edgar now sets out to the island where he intends to become one with nature and return to a more natural version of man.

However, Edgar makes the mistake of assuming that a change of ambience will help him live a meditated life. At the end of the novel the readers realize true peace of mind can not be achieved through paradise, but solely through one?s personal efforts. An external change will only change surroundings; it can not balance or improve one?s inner-self. As Edgar works through his internal and external problems he becomes captured in the same corruptive and influenced behavior he hoped to leave behind in America. Some of the adversity Edgar is faced with is a love triangle with his best friend Mountain, and Mountain?s girlfriend Kate. He is also stalked by an island native. Ironically, it takes a hurricane to remove protagonist Edgar from this complex lifestyle.

Poe Ballantine creates the image of a youthful character by breaking us down with complex tragedies and then building us up with his unique sense of humor. It is the story of a hero who attempts to regain paradise. Ballantine?s fast paced style keeps you interested from the beginning to the end and then craving for more. His detailed descriptions and vivid scenes make you feel as if you were following Edgar on his journey to paradise. Once Edgar reaches the island, the culture shock seems so grave that you wonder whether it is a direct representation of the society or a delirious description due to an unhealthy mix of heat and alcohol. However, this quickly forces Edgar to realize that civilization is not as overrated as he perceived. Ballantine also maintains an intriguingly relaxed and almost conversational tone throughout the novel which provides a level of comfort between Edgar, the author, and the audience. With this said, Ballantine has proved himself to be a contemporary spokesperson of today?s society with a strong sense of wit.

Despite the fact that the novel takes place in 1976, I believe it is still a good reflection of today?s younger generation. Edgar helps to open the minds of an older more structured generation to a more simple and fanciful mentality but also aids the youth in recognizing the demand for direction. Edgar?s whimsical idea of a simpler life, his endless craving for alcohol, and his yearning for unity with nature will leave you wishing to return to the days of youth or a motivation to improve upon them.