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Pacific Offering
Where desert and ocean collide...
Longtime friends Beck and Parry venture down the Baja peninsula in a battered pickup truck named Ginger searching for giant waves and Beck's lost love, Elena.
Thwarted at every turn by bandits, corrupt cops, a deteriorating truck, and a brutal ocean, and dead broke except for a stack of vintage skin magazines they use for barter, they endure adversity and continue south.
As Beck becomes increasingly obsessed with finding Elena rather than the big surf Parry came for, Beck and Parry's friendship begins to crumble. Everything converges deep in the desert where the swell of the decade awaits--and Elena.
Longtime friends Beck and Parry venture down the Baja peninsula in a battered pickup truck named Ginger searching for giant waves and Beck's lost love, Elena.
Thwarted at every turn by bandits, corrupt cops, a deteriorating truck, and a brutal ocean, and dead broke except for a stack of vintage skin magazines they use for barter, they endure adversity and continue south.
As Beck becomes increasingly obsessed with finding Elena rather than the big surf Parry came for, Beck and Parry's friendship begins to crumble. Everything converges deep in the desert where the swell of the decade awaits--and Elena.
188 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 2012
About the author
Tom Mahony
5 books3 followersTom Mahony is a biological consultant in California with an MS from Humboldt State University. He is the author of the novels Imperfect Solitude, Flooding Granite, and Pacific Offering. Visit his website at tommahony.net.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
April 10, 2013
(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted illegally.)
In my half a decade of reviewing indie literature now, the one great small press that I think most gets overlooked is the fantastic Casperian Books; for while they always pick the most superb authors out there when it comes to the specific thing these authors are trying to accomplish, what this tends to be are smaller, more slowly paced character studies, which when combined with their lackluster covers tends to get them lost in the shuffle many times of the literal thousands of indie presses that now exist. Take Tom Mahony's Pacific Offering, for example, which doesn't offer up too many thrills from its actual storyline -- longtime surfer buddies take one last poverty-stricken road trip to Mexico to catch some waves, realizing along the way that they are growing too old to tolerate the recklessness of such trips anymore, and that their diverging lives are rapidly bringing an end to even their friendship, a serviceable enough plot but no great shakes. But when it comes to evoking the melancholy tone and feel that such a premise suggests, Mahony has few peers; and as someone who lives in the area and most likely has picked up the board a few times himself, he brings a real authenticity to this telling, and really pulls you in to the southern California coast and all its details in an engaging and impressive way. A quiet and winsome book but a compelling read, perhaps your life won't be changed by its small slice-of-life scope, but certainly you will be rewarded by this well-done loss-of-innocence tale.
Out of 10: 9.0
In my half a decade of reviewing indie literature now, the one great small press that I think most gets overlooked is the fantastic Casperian Books; for while they always pick the most superb authors out there when it comes to the specific thing these authors are trying to accomplish, what this tends to be are smaller, more slowly paced character studies, which when combined with their lackluster covers tends to get them lost in the shuffle many times of the literal thousands of indie presses that now exist. Take Tom Mahony's Pacific Offering, for example, which doesn't offer up too many thrills from its actual storyline -- longtime surfer buddies take one last poverty-stricken road trip to Mexico to catch some waves, realizing along the way that they are growing too old to tolerate the recklessness of such trips anymore, and that their diverging lives are rapidly bringing an end to even their friendship, a serviceable enough plot but no great shakes. But when it comes to evoking the melancholy tone and feel that such a premise suggests, Mahony has few peers; and as someone who lives in the area and most likely has picked up the board a few times himself, he brings a real authenticity to this telling, and really pulls you in to the southern California coast and all its details in an engaging and impressive way. A quiet and winsome book but a compelling read, perhaps your life won't be changed by its small slice-of-life scope, but certainly you will be rewarded by this well-done loss-of-innocence tale.
Out of 10: 9.0
December 30, 2012
Beck and Perry are lifelong buddies with the kind of friendship that is comforting and familiar, but it's not the kind that fosters maturity. At 28, their strongest connection still simply comes from their mutual love of surfing. They plan one last surf trip down to Baja where their relationship loses its comfort, and challenges them to grow.
The trip is a medley of beauty and disaster. The Baja peninsula comes to life with Mahony's gorgeous descriptions. Mexico's raw beauty can be seen, felt, even tasted as the reader travels south along the coast with Beck and Perry in their old battered truck. Despite nature's beauty, the trip is disastrous as their truck continually breaks down, they get robbed, they run into corrupt cops, and even their beloved ocean has its way with them. It's the surf trip from hell, but Beck's desire to find his old girlfriend Elena keeps them traveling farther south until they reach her, and the perfect swell.
Mahony's story is engaging and even exciting with its unexpected twists. It's written with the authenticity of someone who has made that trip enough times to perfectly capture the subtleties of the Baja landscape as well as the south of the border experience. It's also written with depth and understanding of these two characters, and how difficult growing up, even at 28, can be.
Surfers will love every bit of this book. "The swell was growing by the minute. It was all energy: wind and sea, destroy and build, erode and deposit. A lovely mess." But even non-surfers will enjoy the genuine peek into the curious lifestyle that compels someone to let the ocean, and her many moods, keep such a tight grip on one's life. "'Everything else in life was a necessary evil we had to deal with so we could surf. That stretch of beach was our entire universe.'"
Pacific Offering is a great story, and Tom Mahony is an excellent writer.
The trip is a medley of beauty and disaster. The Baja peninsula comes to life with Mahony's gorgeous descriptions. Mexico's raw beauty can be seen, felt, even tasted as the reader travels south along the coast with Beck and Perry in their old battered truck. Despite nature's beauty, the trip is disastrous as their truck continually breaks down, they get robbed, they run into corrupt cops, and even their beloved ocean has its way with them. It's the surf trip from hell, but Beck's desire to find his old girlfriend Elena keeps them traveling farther south until they reach her, and the perfect swell.
Mahony's story is engaging and even exciting with its unexpected twists. It's written with the authenticity of someone who has made that trip enough times to perfectly capture the subtleties of the Baja landscape as well as the south of the border experience. It's also written with depth and understanding of these two characters, and how difficult growing up, even at 28, can be.
Surfers will love every bit of this book. "The swell was growing by the minute. It was all energy: wind and sea, destroy and build, erode and deposit. A lovely mess." But even non-surfers will enjoy the genuine peek into the curious lifestyle that compels someone to let the ocean, and her many moods, keep such a tight grip on one's life. "'Everything else in life was a necessary evil we had to deal with so we could surf. That stretch of beach was our entire universe.'"
Pacific Offering is a great story, and Tom Mahony is an excellent writer.
June 6, 2013
Pacific Offering, Tom Mahony's third novel, is part Thelma and Louise, part Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, and part Midnight Express. Longtime surfer buddies Beck and Parry head south of the border in search of the much-anticipated "swell of the decade" and Beck's lost love, Elena. Their journey starts with them getting robbed by banditos and goes downhill from there.
Beck and Perry are well-developed characters, both flawed, but still appealing. Some of the other characters are a bit thin, but most only have brief cameos in what's ultimately a story about the nature of friendship.
This is definitely a fast-paced read, but at times it's too fast. Some of the predicaments Beck and Parry get themselves into are resolved too quickly to be entirely satisfactory.
This road-trip-from-hell story is a fast-paced and exciting adventure that will appeal to surfers and non-surfers alike.
Read the rest of this review at Underground Book Reviews: http://www.undergroundbookreviews.com...
Beck and Perry are well-developed characters, both flawed, but still appealing. Some of the other characters are a bit thin, but most only have brief cameos in what's ultimately a story about the nature of friendship.
This is definitely a fast-paced read, but at times it's too fast. Some of the predicaments Beck and Parry get themselves into are resolved too quickly to be entirely satisfactory.
This road-trip-from-hell story is a fast-paced and exciting adventure that will appeal to surfers and non-surfers alike.
Read the rest of this review at Underground Book Reviews: http://www.undergroundbookreviews.com...
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews