Whale Season: A Novel [Paperback]

N. M. Kelby (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 14, 2006

One Christmas Eve, Whale Harbor is visited by a man who thinks he’s Jesus and claims to be looking for a game of poker. But, as usual, things are not quite what they seem. Having some version of the Lord in town for his birthday creates a strange effect on the locals: unlikely couples are breaking up and making up and making out; a luxury mobile home that belonged to an elderly couple from New Jersey (until they disappeared after a run-in with “the Lord”) is won by a down-on-his-luck gambler in an unbelievable hand of poker; the area’s most well-known and long-forgotten tourist attraction is rising up from a hole in the ground; and a gun no one has used in years is suddenly in hot demand. In the steamy climes of southern Florida, you take your miracles where you can get them—and if that means being led to salvation by a schizophrenic with a rap sheet, so be it.

In the rollicking tradition of Carl Hiaasen’s Tourist Season, with the heart of Garrison Keillor’s Lake Wobegon, and peopled by the kind of colorful characters who would be quite at home in any Tom Robbins novel, N. M. Kelby’s Whale Season is a sharp and funny novel made up of equal parts comic adventure and serial-killer inspired mayhem.


From the Hardcover edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A late-night Christmas Eve card game with a Jesus impersonator triggers misadventures galore in Kelby's screwball comedy with a dark side. In the dinky town of Whale Season, a faded (and whale-free) Florida tourist trap, various citizens mull over the lows life's brought them to. Sheriff Trot Jeeter and his best friend/oldest rival, Leon, a used RV salesman, form a love square with Carlotta, Leon's erstwhile girlfriend, and Dagmar, the owner of a local strip club and Leon's ex-wife (Trot loves them both, but Carlotta most). After winning a luxury RV from "Jesus" in poker, Leon gets drunk and burns down his trailer; everyone figures he's dead. Meanwhile, Jesus (who's really a serial killer named Dr. Ricardo Garcia) has decided that Jimmy Ray (a musician at Dagmar's club—and likely her father) will be his next victim. The nonstop comedy jives weirdly with the characters' backstories and the threat of grisly murder, best exemplified during a scene in which Jesus vows to give Jimmy "the Hallmark Card of Death," Jimmy finally acknowledges his paternity and everyone, weeping with joy, decides to eat French toast. Shaggy, silly, a little bit soggy—but as a holiday diversion, this is mighty good fun. (It's also a big shift for Kelby, who, writing as Nicole Kelby, offered up the luminous, haunting In the Company of Angels in 2001.) (Jan.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist

Floridian Ricardo Garcia thinks he's Jesus Christ. But the second-generation Cuban doctor is far from a saint. In fact, he's a serial killer. That's but one of the revelations in this quirky--and, at times, creepy--comic yarn set in fictional Whale Harbor, Florida (where there are, in fact, no whales). Kelby's -character-driven offering has a skimpy story line involving murdered senior citizens and a hefty sum of shrink-wrapped cash stashed in a stolen RV. The cast includes former cheerleader Dagmar, who runs a "Naughty but Nice" strip club, her ex-husband Leon, owner of Lucky's RV Round-up and a pretty good poker player (thanks to a strategically placed mirror), and Sheriff Trot Jeeter, an unremarkable man in a perpetual state of unrequited love. And, of course, there's stringy-haired Jesus, clad in a white sheet, with requisite scars on his upper forehead and the tops of his hands. No doubt some readers will find the idea of a slayer disguised as a savior a bit irreverent, but fans of Tim Dorsey's Serge Storms novels (also about a goofy serial killer) will feel right at home. Allison Block
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Three Rivers Press (November 14, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0307336786
• ISBN-13: 978-0307336781
• Product Dimensions: 5.3 x 0.7 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #725,473 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

N.M.Kelby (Nicole Mary Kelby) has been translated into several languages and offered by The Literary Guild, Doubleday Book Club, and Quality Paperback Book Club. She is the recipient of a Bush Artist Fellowship in Literature, an NEA Inter-Arts grant, the Heekin Group Foundation's James Fellowship for the Novel, both a Florida and Minnesota State Arts Board Fellowship in fiction, two Jerome Travel Study Grants, and a Jewish Arts Endowment Fellowship.

Her story "Jubilation, Florida" was selected for NPR'S "Selected Shorts," and recorded by Joanne Woodward for the CD Travel Tales, and reprinted in New Stories from the South: Best of 2006 (Algonquin Books).

www.nmkelby.com

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of my Top 10 Funniest Books ever..., March 1, 2006

By 

R. Kyle (USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Whale Season: A Novel (Hardcover)

Chapter One starts out with a guffaw and you really don't stop laughing til you wipe a wry tear from your eye on the final page. Nicole Kelby's sense of humor isn't for everyone, but if you enjoy Christopher Moore, Terry Pratchett, or Jasper Fforde, you will probably love "Whale Season" as well.

Whale Season is the name of a town in FL that isn't visited by whales. The people who named the town did so to create a tourist trap, one of the first in the nation. But, fueled by enough beer and an inventive tourist guide, tourists have seen whales.

It's Christmas Eve and most of the town is at the local bar drinking peppermint schnapps. The town Sheriff, Trot Jeeter, is falling in love with his best friend's girl. That's nothing new, he's still carrying a torch for Leon's ex-wife, Dagmar.

Leon, the aforementioned best friend is playing poker at his RV dealership with Jesus--or at least a very good facsimile thereof. The dealership is on the line because Jesus is betting the American Dream.

That's an RV, by the way about $250,000 worth with gas mileage you can count on one hand. Fleetwood quit making the behemoth moving mansions about a year ago, but "The American Dream" totally fits the way out humor in "Whale Season." The novel's irreverant on the surface but the deeper message of faith and belief shines through.

"Whale Season" is not only worth reading, but keeping and dusting off for those occasions when you need a trip to somewhere where the sunset is pink as Pepto Bismol and the laughter as available as Florida sunshine.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars surprisingly entertaining!, April 7, 2008

By 

Beckid (MN) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Whale Season: A Novel (Hardcover)

I had to read this book for book club and was dreading it. It looked cheesy and didn't sound like anything I would enjoy. I was wrong. Once I started it, I was so amused and laughed out loud many times. I was also touched by the sweetness of it in parts. This would make a great summer vacation read for anyone just looking for a good story.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Extremely entertaining, July 23, 2007

By 

S. Keith (Lafayette, IN) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Whale Season: A Novel (Hardcover)

My favorite aspect of this book was the strange array of character personel that Kelby created. I was immensely compelled to read to the end of this book just to see the interacting of Jesus and Jimmy Ray, a character bond that made this book intensely worthwhile. This is a great book for anyone. I loved it.