White Man's Grave [Hardcover]

Richard Dooling (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1994

A satire, steeped in irony, chronicles the misadventures of Boone Westfall, who wanders through West Africa encountering witches, angry ancestors, and bad medicine in search of his missing friend Michael Killigan, whose high-powered banker father is conducting his own search.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This is a galloping tale about a clash of worldviews, in this case between the insular West African Mende culture--complete with tribal politics and voodoo--and the pure red-blooded Caucasian American variety, with its highly rational citizens bent on ideological conquest, good deeds and the accumulation of cash. For all that heavy loading, Dooling ( Critical Care ) has constructed a deceptively simple story involving the disappearance in the African bush of Michael Killigan, a Peace Corps worker from Indianapolis whose father is a powerful wizard of the bankruptcy courts in the Seventh Circuit. A "black bundle of tightly wrapped rags the size of a football," which has arrived at Randall Killigan's law office, eventually oozes blood and might be the cause of his bizarre nocturnal hallucinations. Calling on his considerable and well-compensated powers of analysis and suasion, Randall discovers that he is the recipient of African "bad medicine." The State Department confirms that his son is missing. What follows is a journey far into the depths of African magic for the whereabouts of Michael Killigan. His boyhood friend, a not-always endearing naif named Boone Westfall, flies on a heroic rescue mission, only to further complicate the situation. Meanwhile, looking to buy answers, lawyer Killigan showers money and Land-Rovers into the African bush. Dooling's prose gifts are capacious: of a "huge shirtless blacksmith" working at a forge, he says "he lifted something and the muscles of his back bloomed like the hood of a cobra." The book's language similarly expands to accommodate the bizarre and mind-bending mysteries of witchcraft upon which the plot turns. In the end, the book's lush satire cleverly obscures its simple, unarguable premise: that unfathomable rituals are at the heart of any culture, even in Indiana.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Behind the fairly simple story of a Peace Corps volunteer missing in West Africa and a friend's search to find him, one feels that some larger significance is brooding and expects it to appear at any moment. Unfortunately, it never does. The pace is fast, the style lush, and the atmosphere slightly ominous; there is plenty of action, adventure, and suspense; but somehow Dooling has not quite managed to make it all come alive. The result has to be one of the longest shaggy-dog stories on record. The book would have been better if the author had curbed his tendency to overexpansiveness and exercised a little control of his material. A potentially good novel that does not quite make it.
A.J. Anderson, GSLIS, Simmons Coll., Boston
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 386 pages
• Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux (T); 1st edition (June 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0374289514
• ISBN-13: 978-0374289515
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #936,396 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars White Man's Grave ain't no Jungle Book, March 6, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: White Man's Grave: A Novel (Paperback)

Richard Dooling wrote White Man's Grave, and effectively threw the gantlet down at the Michael Crieghtons and Tom Clancys of the literary world. The novel is an in your face look at the contradiction that is the modern American society. Dooling puts the typical young American (Boone) in the topsy-turvy world of Sierra-Leone, and creates a modern version of Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. The great part is that he didn't have to revert to talking talking rabbits to do it. White Man's Grave moves quickly. I know I found myself paging through it one day (over a year since I had read it) and before I knew it I was on the 20th page. This kind of book stares Hollywood in the face and says,"Go ahead, try to make me into a movie. I dare you." I very seriously doubt this book will ever be crafted into a Spielberg blockbuster, and it's just as well. It's a great book, and deserves to be recognized as just that

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Owner's manual for the American "Way of Life", February 1, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: White Man's Grave: A Novel (Paperback)

This book is so engaging, I took the time to write a review--a first for me. This is without a doubt one of the best books I have read this year. It is by turns scaldingly satiric and ironic, descriptive and informative, and just ambiguous enough to leave the reader intellectually juiced up at the end! This tale invites the imagination to soar, and the soul to search. Highest recommendation.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Africa you never visited from a cruise ship!, June 22, 1998

By 

Gerald Lipsky - See all my reviews

This review is from: White Man's Grave (Hardcover)

I read the author's "Critical Care" and liked his humor and his apparent medical knowledge or research, so I read this novel. I had visited Africa for two days during two cruise ship stops. What I read was mind boggling over what I saw with my eyes. I certainly know more about Africa than I ever knew before, and unlike college, smiled my way through Africa 101 with the author as Tutor.Loved his humor. A good read. I am hooked for his future works.