Swimming in the Volcano

On the lush, overpopulated Caribbean island of St. Catherine, an American agricultural economist becomes entrapped in some nasty (though occasionally slapstick) political intrigue following the unexpected appearance of his former girlfriend, a cocaine addict with a penchant for double-dealing. At 518 pages, this is a novel of enormous ambition, but Bob Shacochis overcalibrates everyone’s consciousness and goes positively garish on the local color until finally he loses control of Swimming in the Volcano — and, like the island taxi whose driver substitutes coconut oil for brake fluid, it crashes after a long, spectacular downhill plummet. C