Large Image
Share This
Description
AWAKE NOW, SAILOR
Cass Loyola, a Cuban merchant seaman, abandons the ocean seas to pursue
literature and a better life at a button-down college in New York City.
As he struggles to adjust to his new life, he is haunted by the woman he
left behind in Cardiff--a flame-haired Wiccan priestess who makes books
with inks made from flowers and seashells.
As he journeys from literary readings and champagne museum soirees in Manhattan to the
soft beds of women in the social register, he becomes less the social
brute, but comes to question his adopted values and fears the loss of
his soul, whose outline is drawn with inks made of flowers and
seashells.
PRAISE FOR AWAKE NOW, SAILOR
Superficially dissimilar, the Cubans and the Welsh have a lot in common: They are brawlers, romantics, and go everywhere with music in their ears. Eddie Vega's funny, poignant, and smart debut is a bildungsroman charting its protagonist's transformation from exile to homecoming -- broken guitars, noses, and hearts scattered along the way. Vega's intelligence is clear at every turn in his writing, but like the poetry of his tramp-traveling hero, it's kept under wraps. This is a novel that knows novels, not one that strains and fails to be literary. It -- and Vega -- are the real thing. -- Tristan Davies, author of CAKE (Johns Hopkins)
Eddie Vega's wild, superbly written novel buzzes with intelligence, humor, and originality. As a reader, I was energized. -- Jean Charbonneau, author of COMME UN INTRUS (Québec Amérique)
A rich and powerful novel on par with Lowry's Under the Volcano and Mishima's Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea. -- Cortright McMeel, author of SHORT (St. Martins)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
A former merchant seaman, Eddie Vega is a Cuban-born writer and journalist whose work has appeared in numerous anthologies, school textbooks, and news venues, among them, Parnassus, Little Havana Blues, Brooklyn Review, Backstage magazine, The New York Law Journal, and The Washington Post. A winner of the Irwin Shaw Fiction Prize, he also writes poetry; his poem "Translating My Grandfather's House" has become a standard reading assignment in many primary schools across the U.S. and is showcased on the Web site of the Philadelphia Historical Society. He holds degrees from Brooklyn College and Columbia University, and an honorable discharge from the United States Marine Corps. He lives in New York City.
Tag This Book
This Book Has Been Tagged
Our Recommendation
Notify Me When The Price...
Log In to track this book on eReaderIQ.
Track These Authors
Log In to track Eddie Vega on eReaderIQ.