Wake of the Perdido Star [Import] [Paperback]

Gene Hackman and Daniel Lenihan (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Piatkus Books (2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0749931752
• ISBN-13: 978-0749931759
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (34 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #8,538,421 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

36 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars engaging page-turner, November 8, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Wake of the Perdido Star: A Novel (Hardcover)

Brings to mind the absolutely reliable adventure tales--early Melville, for instance, or Jack London. Not just a coming of age novel, it's packed with details about seafaring and old-time diving. Truly an enjoyable read.

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Glorious Success, January 11, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Wake of the Perdido Star: A Novel (Hardcover)

In WAKE OF THE PERDIDO STAR I found everything I could hope for in a novel: memorable characters, a suspense-filled plot, unusual historical details-even romance. Its protagonist, "Black Jack" O'Reilly, is sure to go down as one of the great characters, as notable for his courage as he is for his satisfying character arc. At every step there is an obstacle: mutiny, shipwreck, savages, drought, pirates, oppressive governments; each chapter propels us into the next, and it is precisely this which makes WAKE so satisfying. Lesser novelists would have succumbed to stock heroes and villains, to a more linear tale of revenge, but it is WAKE'S multi-faceted characters and complex, unexpected plot twists that make this as fine a piece of literature as one could hope for. It is the type of tale Conrad or Poe would have embraced: one that favors the reader's wishes' over the writers'. To talk of judging WAKE in the context of Hackman's acting career is, of course, as irrelevant as judging LORD JIM in the context of Conrad's being a native of Poland. Anyone who has applied any amount of time to the study of literature knows a work must be evaluated on its own merit, regardless of the authors' background. In its four hundred-plus pages, WAKE is an ambitious undertaking by any novelist's standards. And it succeeds--gloriously.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A boy's adventure story isn't the worst thing in the world, January 17, 2002

By 

Brian C. Taylor "smug feldspar magnate" (Tallahassee, FL USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Wake of the Perdido Star (Paperback)

Fair enough. It reads like a pulp action story, at times. And our hero Jack is a little to good to be true. Mighty thews and all. Brooding countenance and flashing eyes. However that doesn't make this a bad book. It makes it a pretty entertaining and action-packed book, and while Jack may be a little unbelievable, the action and story aren't unbelievable. Essentially, Jack, the 18 year old son of a gun smith, is swept off on a whirlwind adventure that takes him from the fledgling USA to Cuba to the South Pacific. In it, he encounters self-righteous Yankees, evil Cuban noblemen, bloodthirsty Pacific Islanders (savages, don't you know), bloodthirstier Dutch slavers, and British press gangs. Okay, there are a lot of cliches (and I mean a lot), but there is a lot of fun in here too. And despite the notorious and nigh-legendary phrase "the pintles were sprung from the gudgeon," there's not an overwhelming amount of sea-stuff in here. Try reading Patrick O'Brian and you'll see what I mean. This book is comparable to Wilbur Smith's "Birds of Prey." Kinda like an old Errol Flynn movie. I enjoyed this book a good bit, and would be interested in reading more from these authors.