The Watermelon King [Paperback]

Daniel Wallace (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 14, 2003

An endearing, often outrageous blend of fable, tall tale, and page-turner, The Watermelon King brings readers to Ashland, Alabama -- the fictional town immortalized in Daniel Wallace's Big Fish -- whose reputation is based on the long-ago abundance of watermelons. Thomas Rider knows almost nothing about his parents, only that his mother died the day he was born in Ashland. He travels there in search of his past, learning of the town's bizarre history. Gradually with the help of an offbeat, utterly unforgettable cast of characters, Thomas finds himself immersed in a series of events that turns everything he knows upside down. Comic, poignant, and wholly original, The Watermelon King is a magical novel steeped in the power of identity, myth, and good old-fashioned southern storytelling.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Wallace returns to Ashland, Ala., the setting of his debut novel, Big Fish, with this fable about a young man discovering his roots in a Southern town with a dark tradition. Eighteen-year-old Thomas Rider knows nothing about his parents, except that his mother, Lucy, died while giving birth to him in Ashland. He heads to the town to quiz the locals, whose testimonies reveal that the beautiful Lucy was much admired by the men in town when she arrived from Birmingham to look after her rich father's property. Yet as she learned more about Ashland, Lucy (who, like most Ashlanders, is white) became appalled at the town's racism, its narrow-mindedness and above all, its yearly fertility rite: the town held a festival during which the oldest male virgin was deflowered in a watermelon field. Lucy deemed the ritual barbaric, and sabotaged it by announcing that she was pregnant by the mildly retarded pariah, Iggy Winslow, who was to be that year's virgin. The celebration had to be canceled, and Ashland's crops promptly died out. Thomas learns not only his mother's story, but also the true identity of his father-and he also has an opportunity to revive the watermelon crop. Wallace never quite finds the right tone for this over-the-top fantasy, which is sometimes more sentimental kitsch than Southern gothic. Lucy's moral certitude is presented simplistically (she's kind to black folks and the village idiot). It's hard to take seriously her outrage over the comical fertility ritual. Overall, this is a slight misstep from an author with much more potential than is demonstrated here. Rights sold in France, Germany, Japan and the Netherlands.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Ashland, Alabama, is the former Watermelon Capital of the World--where "no one thought to grow them; they seemed to grow themselves." When 19-year-old Thomas Rider arrives there with questions about his beautiful, willful mother, he learns that her life and death are inextricably tied up with the mythology of Ashland and its former glory. The town owed its miraculous fecundity to the annual crowning of the Watermelon King, a ritual observed for the last time the year of Thomas' birth. Through interviews with locals, Thomas learns that his mother was responsible for the demise of the Watermelon Festival and the town's subsequent decline--and that many of those left behind see him as their hope for the future. Wallace recounts the history of Ashland by letting his characters speak for themselves, their matter-of-factness in contrast to the outlandish nature of their stories. This is a unique and spellbinding novel, an unforgettable southern tall tale with extraordinary characters. Big Fish (1998), the first of Wallace's novels to feature Ashland, has been optioned by Columbia Pictures. Meredith Parets
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Mariner Books (November 14, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0618400818
• ISBN-13: 978-0618400812
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #404,420 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Unpredictable People, November 26, 2003

By 

John Rosenthal (Chapel Hill, NC USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Watermelon King: A Novel (Hardcover)

I enjoyed THE WATERMELON KING a lot. I enjoyed the way it kept happening on its own peculiar terms. My expectation as a reader is to encounter characters who are drawn according to a predictable and, at least for the purposes of fiction, a malleable psychology--in other words, characters who are in the business of not being themselves, or of not knowing what a self is. Of course Shakespeare didn't write this way, or Faulkner. Wallace's characters, too, are grandly or mythically motivated--not parsed out the way modern people like to think of themselves. These characters are what they are and they do the thing they are. They don't play at growth. It's quite nice to be taken into this pre-therapeutic and unsophisticated universe -- a fabulous universe if you will -- and be told a story about love, fertility, and the way we thrive on the story itself--the telling of the story, the passing on of the story, and ultimately, the tragedy of the story. WATERMELON KING is a work that sticks around.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Baby Tubbs says Yes!, November 26, 2003

By 

"babytubbs" (Gary, Indiana) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Watermelon King: A Novel (Hardcover)

With Watermelon King, Wallace builds on Big Fish and Ray in Reverse by writing what is the most cohesive novel of the trio. Publisher's Weekly called it a "slight mistep," I call that a "slight misread." Come on. He's at his best here, combining the best of that staitforward storytelling seen in O'Conner, the strong regional construction of Faulkner, and the magical realism of Marquez. Unlike, say... Rushdie, Wallace avoids using magical realism in an apish, overwhelming way, but rather puts it in service of the story. He takes it over the top just enough. This book pushes the limits of genre, avoiding the perimeters of most of the bland treacle that we submit our eyes to. You oughta read it. Great book.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars King of Storytelling, November 25, 2003

By 

Jamie Jahncke "jamjahncke" (New Orleans, LA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Watermelon King: A Novel (Hardcover)

As a Southerner and lover of Southern literature, I especially enjoy books that celebrate the art of storytelling. Anyone who has read Big Fish can tell you that Daniel Wallace is a master storyteller, and The Watermelon King proves it. I can't wait for the next one!