Dash in the Blue Pacific - Softcover

Dash's adventures begin with a familiar trope: a man washes up on a remote island's beach, worries that the natives will eat him, and plots his escape. In Alpaugh's hands, however, the story is anything but stale. Instead of building signal fires and rafts (though these will come), Dash is preoccupied with a tribal chief who wants to feed him to a volcano, women who want his help to make the island s first white baby, and a young girl who hopes to escape the island with the "soldiers" who sometimes come to her shores looking for the prettiest among them. And then there's the former god Dash spends many hours consulting with, a half-fish, half-man mind reader named Weeleekonawahulahoopa Willy for short who has resigned his godly role after failing to save his people from drowning. It gets weirder after that.

The weird parts work because Alpaugh integrates them into a story that is physically raw and wickedly funny. Dash is as incredulous about all that is happening as anyone, and his self-conscious skepticism keeps the magical elements from seeming off-the-wall. Little by little, Dash's conversations with Willy reveal Dash's deeper emotional wounds, and offer another interpretation for his dreamlike visions.

Taken simply as a comic adventure story, Dash in the Blue Pacific is thoroughly entertaining. When you consider the other elements--racial tensions, human grief, and spiritual redemption--it takes on new levels of meaning. Book clubs will be talking about this one.

--Sheila M. Trask, Foreword Review

"Cole Alpaugh is a grand comedian, and the conflicts and themes which exist in uncharted territory for traditional novels work well with his droll craft. The novel is full of magical wonders, melancholic gods, invasive spiders, and hilarious blunders from both Dash and the natives. 'Boring' and 'predictable' would be the last two words you'd use to describe Alpaugh's novel."

--D. A. Wetherell, Necessary Fiction