Every Boat Turns South Virtual Book Tour May & June 2010
Authors on Tour, Featured — By Dorothy Thompson on April 19, 2010 at 11:13 am
Join J.P. White, author of the mystery novel, Every Boat Turns South (The Permanent Press, September ‘09), as he virtually tours the blogosphere in May & June 2010 on his first virtual book tour with Pump Up Your Book Promotion!
About J.P. White
J.P. White
In the last 35 years, J.P. White has published essays, articles, fiction, reviews, interviews and poetry in over a hundred publications including The Nation, The New Republic, The Los Angeles Times Magazine, The Gettysburg Review, American Poetry Review, and Poetry (Chicago). He is a graduate of New College in Sarasota, Florida, Colorado State University and Vermont College in Fine Arts. He is the author of five books of poems and a novel, Every Boat Turns South. You can visit his website at www.jpwhite.net.
Every Boat Turns South by J.P. White (click on cover to purchase)
About Every Boat Turns South
Every Boat Turns South mixes memoir-like adventure with a moving coming-home tale. The book opens and closes in Florida, but its sultry and terror-filled center is set in the Turks & Caicos Islands and in the Dominican Republic. By interweaving the Florida bedside scenes with Matt’s confessional account of his wild life in the Caribbean, White subtly builds sympathy for his ne er-do-well drifter, as Matt slowly reveals the truth about Hale by coming to understand his own impulses and needs and by cherishing, through memory, all that his father had taught him. The writing in both sections forcefully lyrical and full of maritime detail (sailors will love this book) suggests an autobiographical prompt, but clearly the author is in command of a style that effectively serves his complex plot. The flashbacks pulse with sensuality, the take on island natives and tourists is nothing less than superb: The hotel swarms with interracial couples strung together like rosary beads . . . white women, pale as chalk, lean into black men like they ve found the Rosetta stone. White men pull at strings of mulatto women like taffy. Meringue and rum, greed and sex rule. Everything. Everyone. As one of the novel s shrewd and exotic characters says, we all have our weaknesses once we get to the islands.
Read an Excerpt
I got lost in a storm at the tailend of the Bahamas in 1980, and now it’s 1983 or is it 1984? I couldn’t say for sure what the day is, the month or the year. Flung up on my parents’ doorstep, I’ve reached the threshold of as much twisted sorrow as I can lay claim to as a thirty-year-old: I’m soaked in sweat with the thunder nickering, hoping my aging parents will take me in because I’ve got nowhere else to go.
I park my trash bags and stare at their front door. My wristbones search for any handhold. My body trembles from the taut indecision of what to do next. I lean forward and touch my forehead to the door thinking the termite wood will tell me what to do. It doesn’t.
When I do knock, I expect to find my parents mulling a cribbage board on the back porch of this cottage on Amelia Island, Florida; their purple-veined hands flying fast through the pegging of the count. Any harbor, even the harbor of deep-knotted pain, can be weathered with a deck of cards. That’s what my mother claims, but she’s not telling even half the truth. An only child, and a master of Soltaire, Kings in the Corner, Bridge, Hearts, Poker and just about any other game, she’s just as likely to pack a deck as a wallet into her purse. The cards always conceal as much as they reveal, I hear her say and I’ve come to think that phrase could pass as her byline.
My father will be wearing his blue denim work shirt with the sleeves rolled up and his white floppy hat stained with paint and varnish. He might even be wearing his bunched-up blue cardigan even though the room will be damp with heat. My mother will be nattily pressed in white capris, emerald silk blouse with dolphin broach. Between them, there will be a scalloped glass bowl brimming with radishes, celery, olives, carrots. He’ll be drinking grape juice from a wine glass. She, two fingers of Spanish sherry. I expect to find them neck and neck on third street, each playing with the near-telepathic ease that comes with forty years of hiding inside a two-person game that banks on a secret blind account: the crib. The crib will save me, I hear her say, but the crib never does. Nothing saves her. Nothing is enough. Not God. Not sherry. Not all the boat travel up and down the Florida coast.
Their doorstep’s littered with storm debris. An unexpected rustling makes me jump. Inside a tent of fallen fronds, a chamelon stands as big as a dragon. I stare him down. He doesn’t budge. He and I have sized each other up somewhere before. I raise the brass door knocker in the shape of a human hand and let it drop hard against the wood. My blood jumps from my ankles to my wrists as I wait for a greeting, an answer, a cracked door, anything.
No footsteps. No voices. I hear only the Atlantic two blocks away jigging up the beach. I cup my hand over the brass hand and let it drop again.
I call out, trying to imagine what words will enter my mouth, then I say, “Skip, Mom, it’s me.”
I lick my lips, twist the doorknob, thinking it’s not too late to back away, thumb to the interstate, keep moving north. The door’s open. I step gingerly across a gray slate threshold like I’m stepping over jellyfish cast upon the beach. I let myself steal a breath after seeing Skip’s favorite print of two sailboats thrashing downwind that hangs on the foyer wall to the left. To the right, I see a vase of wilted flowers and a sprawled stack of unopened mail.
I call out again. No answer.
I see through the back porch glass, my mother curled in a chaise lounge. Her pink knees touching. Her hands hanging slack at her side. A figure of depletion. I look about the living room and see no newspapers, no magazines, none of my mother’s books or needlepoint set about like decorations. The only familiar watermark is a dusty collage of photos on the mantel where my dead brother looks out upon his world after his poolside heroics.
Here’s what critics have to say about Every Boat Turns South
This stylish debut novel from poet White (The Salt Hour) brings to mind John D. MacDonald’s Florida noirs, but with a modern sensibility. In 1983, after a three-year absence, high school dropout Matt Younger, 30, returns to his parents’ cottage on Amelia Island, Fla. The family’s discontent stems from the earlier drowning of Matt’s older brother, Hale, the “family god.” Matt’s father, Jack, is dying of congestive heart failure while his mother, Emily, is exhausted from around-the-clock caregiving. Relieving his mother, Matt updates Jack on his shady adventures as the self-styled “king of all sailing fools.” Working as a skipper, Matt was hired to pilot a boat from Florida to St. Thomas and en route takes up cocaine running for drug lord Jimmy Q, eventually stealing $2 million worth of coke. But when he docks in the Dominican Republic for repairs, his real troubles begin, in the form of deliciously nasty femme fatale Jesse Dove and Matt’s love interest, local hooker Rosario Estrella. White’s vivid prose, layered plot line and detailed acumen of Caribbean sailing all boost his impressive yarn above run-of-the-mill noirs.
–Publisher’s Weekly
I especially appreciated White’s efforts to write to the last page. So many recent novels hook a reader at the start, keep them churning along through most of the book, and then appear to give up at the last. It’s as though they are hearing some publisher say, “Get it done already. We’re already advertising the book.” Maybe they just don’t know how to bring it all to a conclusive ending that makes some sense; they don’t even try.
I was a giddy girl when I started reading this book. I love boating andpart of this story takes place in my stomping grounds here in Florida.This book is beautifully written and full of action. The main character Matt is the kind of guy trouble seems to find. Actually, all of the characters are well rounded and well written. I don’t want to give any thing away but I will say this is a book I will read over and over again.
Every Boat Turns South Tour Schedule
Monday, May 3
Interviewed at Working Writers
Tuesday, May 4
Interviewed at Broowaha
Wednesday, May 5
Book spotlighted at As the Pages Turn
Thursday, May 6
Interviewed at Beyond the Books
Friday, May 7
Interviewed at Pump Up Your Book
Monday, May 10
Interviewed at The Writer’s Life
Tuesday, May 11
Interviewed at Blogcritics
Wednesday, May 12
Book spotlighted at Examiner
Thursday, May 13
Book reviewed at Lucky Rosie’s
Friday, May 14
Guest blogging at The Book Faery Reviews
Monday, May 17
Interviewed at Literarily Speaking
Tuesday, May 18
Guest blogging at The Book Connection
Wednesday, May 19
Book reviewed at Books with a Cup of Coffee
Thursday, May 20
Guest blogging at Beth’s Book Review Blog
Friday, May 21
Guest blogging and book giveaway at This Book For Free
Monday, May 24
Book reviewed at Mommy Reads Too Much
Tuesday, May 25
Guest blogging at Night Owl Reviews
Wednesday, May 26
Interviewed at Review From Here
Thursday, May 27
Book reviewed at You Have How Many Kids?
Friday, May 28
Book reviewed at Rundpinne
Tuesday, June 1
Guest blogging at The Writer’s Life
Wednesday, June 2
Interviewed at Literarily Speaking
Thursday, June 3
Guest blogging at The Naked Hero
Friday, June 4
Guest blogging at Mommy Reads Too Much
Monday, June 7
Guest blogging at Beth’s Book Review Blog
Tuesday, June 8
Guest blogging at The Story Behind the Book
Wednesday, June 9
Interviewed at Review From Here
Thursday, June 10
Interviewed at Personovelty
Friday, June 11
Interviewed at Book Marketing Buzz
Monday, June 14
Chat at Book Ventures Book Club
Tuesday, June 15
Chat at Book Ventures Book Club
Interviewed at The Hot Author Report
Wednesday, June 16
Chat at Book Ventures Book Club
Thursday, June 17
Chat at Book Ventures Book Club
Friday, June 18
Chat at Book Ventures Book Club
Monday, June 21
Chat at Book Ventures Book Club
Tuesday, June 22
Book reviewed at A Musing Mother
Wednesday, June 23
Interviewed on A Book and a Chat Radio Show
Thursday, June 24
Book reviewed at Book Ventures Book Club
Friday, June 25
Guest blogging at Literarily Speaking
J.P. White’s EVERY BOAT TURNS SOUTH VIRTUAL BLOG TOUR ‘10 will officially begin on May 3 and end on June 25 2010. Please contact Dorothy Thompson at thewriterslife@yahoo.com if you are interested in hosting and/or reviewing his book during his virtual book tour or click here to use the form. Thank you!
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Tags: action and adventure, blog tour, book campaign, book promotions, book publicity, book tour, Caribbean, Dominican Republic, Every Boat Turns South, Florida, J.P. White, Jay White, literary fiction, mystery novel, online book promotion, promote your book, sell your book, The Permanent Press, Turks & Caicos Islands, virtual author tour, virtual book tour
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