What do you think?
Rate this book
Blue Rubber Pool
JT Harrington, a shadowy, world-weary south-of-the-border deal maker, is having qualms about his work and life. Smitten by a dainty Southern belle—she’s a Dawn Wells look-alike—he ships his sailboat to rural South Carolina and parks it near her parents’ generations-old plantation house.
But his transition to the boonies does not go well. His type of guns is not for hunting, his type of boat is not for catching bass. He likes Zeppelin, not country. Nobody surfs. A neighbor’s cow keeps wandering near his stash. And somebody’s watching from the road…
But his transition to the boonies does not go well. His type of guns is not for hunting, his type of boat is not for catching bass. He likes Zeppelin, not country. Nobody surfs. A neighbor’s cow keeps wandering near his stash. And somebody’s watching from the road…
348 pages, Kindle Edition
Published September 8, 2018
1 person is currently reading
5 people want to read
About the author
Tim Bryant
3 books15 followersTim Bryant was an avid sailor working in arts administration then ad agency positions until a life altering injury threw him into writing novels.
The Stained Glass Mustang is his third published work. As with Blue Rubber Pool and The Bird in Your Heart: A Carolina Sea Island Story, it explores Southern culture, mid-life crisis, and redemption.
After living many other places Tim is returned to South Carolina where he built a beach house in a cow pasture and keeps a small vineyard, peach trees, blackberry bushes, bamboo and banana plants.
His wife Crystal has taught hundreds of children to read in their threadbare public school system in rural Union County.
Tim appreciates feedback and hopes you’ll review his novels.
The Stained Glass Mustang is his third published work. As with Blue Rubber Pool and The Bird in Your Heart: A Carolina Sea Island Story, it explores Southern culture, mid-life crisis, and redemption.
After living many other places Tim is returned to South Carolina where he built a beach house in a cow pasture and keeps a small vineyard, peach trees, blackberry bushes, bamboo and banana plants.
His wife Crystal has taught hundreds of children to read in their threadbare public school system in rural Union County.
Tim appreciates feedback and hopes you’ll review his novels.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
May 20, 2020
JT Harrington deals out of a duffel bag that clanks and clunks. He delivers whatever he must, but he's middle-aged now, world weary and in a bit of a funk. When he falls in love with a pious Southern woman, he follows her to rural South Carolina and the kind of life he's least suited for. The good ol' folks of Jonesville also love their guns, but there the common ground ends.
So JT makes himself at home by living on his dry-docked boat while building a beach house in a cow pasture. He also puts up a lifeguard stand for his blue rubber pool. In this paltry reminder of the surf-and-shoot tropical life he is missing out on, JT lolls, reminiscing and drinking and feeling increasingly paranoid (for good reason) while wondering why his lovely wife won't have sex with him.
When he leaves his domesticated homestead for an across-the-border assignment that turns into an adventure that turns into a wild ride over land and sea, JT's observations range from the political to the cultural to the spiritual to the geopolitical. His jokes are damn good too.
If you like over-the-top spy yarns told tongue-in-cheek with laugh-out-loud commentary and thought-provoking insights, you will love Blue Rubber Pool. The writing style is unique, brilliant, and fun, part Kurt Vonnegut, part Ian Fleming, part Hunter S. Thompson, and featuring a purposely confusing mix of bad guys who are good and good guys who are bad. Just like real life, but without the virus. So there's international travel too. And sex with stranger danger.
Terrific read. I'm looking forward to the next book from this author.
So JT makes himself at home by living on his dry-docked boat while building a beach house in a cow pasture. He also puts up a lifeguard stand for his blue rubber pool. In this paltry reminder of the surf-and-shoot tropical life he is missing out on, JT lolls, reminiscing and drinking and feeling increasingly paranoid (for good reason) while wondering why his lovely wife won't have sex with him.
When he leaves his domesticated homestead for an across-the-border assignment that turns into an adventure that turns into a wild ride over land and sea, JT's observations range from the political to the cultural to the spiritual to the geopolitical. His jokes are damn good too.
If you like over-the-top spy yarns told tongue-in-cheek with laugh-out-loud commentary and thought-provoking insights, you will love Blue Rubber Pool. The writing style is unique, brilliant, and fun, part Kurt Vonnegut, part Ian Fleming, part Hunter S. Thompson, and featuring a purposely confusing mix of bad guys who are good and good guys who are bad. Just like real life, but without the virus. So there's international travel too. And sex with stranger danger.
Terrific read. I'm looking forward to the next book from this author.
October 10, 2018
He was tired and wanted something else. Then he was her so he goes to where she is staying so he can try to see her. Things may not be as easy as he thinks it is going to be. What is going to happen? See by reading
I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.
I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.
August 11, 2021
JT Harrington, the protagonist of Tim Bryant’s offbeat novel BLUE RUBBER POOL, is world weary but not particularly wise. He is, though, savvy about survival on the “Money Trail,” the seedy south-of-the-border domain of gun runners, drug dealers, money launderers, hit men, government–sponsored mercenaries, and prostitutes.
Through a plot that spirals in and out of a variety of locales, we encounter a wide-ranging cast of characters—most of them sleazy, unhinged, or both—who are at ease “letting their demons run free.” The versatile mind behind this wickedly twisted roller coaster ride turns out metaphors as effortlessly as a seasoned grill cook flips eggs. One can’t help but suspect that our multi-faceted protagonist is an extension of his creator or perhaps an alter ego.
JT has recently married Marianne, a Southern belle from rural South Carolina, but the lifestyle she represents is a sharp departure from the one he’s lived for years on the Money Trail. Indeed, he and Marianne are “opposites balanced on the fulcrum of time and place.” The tension between these two, their pasts and their divergent lifestyles, is what keeps the novel from ripping apart at the seams.
When they meet, Marianne is vacationing on a small island off Hilton Head. JT, having been at sea for a while, has briefly docked, readying for re-launch and a return to risky business in and around Honduras. He is salty, sweaty, and grease smeared from boat maintenance; she is prim, pretty, and innocent in a white sun dress. Her nails are painted, and as she politely nibbles a sandwich with pinky extended, JT’s eyes find “Goodness where before they were lost in Evil.” He watches spellbound as she expertly shucks oysters between delicate sandwich bites. Smitten by her proficiency with the shucking knife, he falls in love, fancying himself her protector, and follows her to her landlocked home in rural Jonesville.
JT’s love of sailing and beaches inspires him to tow his forty-foot ketch to the cow pasture adjacent to Marianne’s family farm where he plans to build a new life, securing the boat on jacks and living in it until his new dwelling—a beach house on stilts—is completed. He hopes Marianne will find it cozy, that it will be their little love nest, but she prefers the comfort of her parents’ big house. His new life becomes fraught with other frustrations: intruding cows, obnoxious turkeys, snakes, an overabundance of country radio stations, the unease of Marianne’s family and neighbors over his pretentious arrival, rednecks, and general boredom.
He develops a coping mechanism that includes floating in a blue rubber swimming pool picked up at the local Big Lots, booze, full-auto target practice with a duct-taped Uzi, Led Zeppelin, and weed. It doesn’t take long for him to realize he’s losing his edge. Soon, without even trying (or trying not to), he finds himself back on the Money Trail.
His life has become a tug-of-war between opposing desires. On one hand there’s comfort and safety in a pastoral setting with a beautiful woman who is “part rose petal on a church pew, part Hemi-powered oyster eater”; the competing impulse is toward the rush of adrenalin that rises out of being in the middle of—facilitating, even—major deals, minor uprisings, and military coups while sailing between Caribbean islands and sea ports or trekking through Central American jungles infested with deadly beasts and humans. One lifestyle provides peace and health, the other excitement and big paydays.
Built upon this see-saw, the narrative comprises an assortment of bizarre situations, flashbacks, and plot twists that illustrate the concept of being caught between two extremes. JT Harrington is—miraculously, after the hard knocks he experiences all along the money trail—a living, breathing, dazed-and-confused enigma seeking resolution. He discovers, though, that reconciling his past with the present and finding an inhabitable space between requires perhaps more fortitude, cleverness, and courage than he can muster.
One thing’s for sure, though: on the money trail it’s hard to tell the good guys from the bad. This never mattered much for JT before Marianne. Now, looking through a different colored lens, he’s presented with new possibilities, but in order to reinvent himself, he must conquer old habits and disentangle himself from former connections that are as twisting and binding as the kudzu surrounding his cow pasture. We eagerly join JT on his adventures to discover whether or not he is up to the task.
Our compulsion continues as we delight in the intrigue, liveliness of language, colorful characters, dark humor, and harrowing action. For the thrill-seeker residing in all of us, Blue Rubber Pool provides the giddy catharsis of a twisting, plunging ride on the theme park’s most unique roller coaster. Board at your own risk. Once the ride starts, you won’t be able to get off.
Through a plot that spirals in and out of a variety of locales, we encounter a wide-ranging cast of characters—most of them sleazy, unhinged, or both—who are at ease “letting their demons run free.” The versatile mind behind this wickedly twisted roller coaster ride turns out metaphors as effortlessly as a seasoned grill cook flips eggs. One can’t help but suspect that our multi-faceted protagonist is an extension of his creator or perhaps an alter ego.
JT has recently married Marianne, a Southern belle from rural South Carolina, but the lifestyle she represents is a sharp departure from the one he’s lived for years on the Money Trail. Indeed, he and Marianne are “opposites balanced on the fulcrum of time and place.” The tension between these two, their pasts and their divergent lifestyles, is what keeps the novel from ripping apart at the seams.
When they meet, Marianne is vacationing on a small island off Hilton Head. JT, having been at sea for a while, has briefly docked, readying for re-launch and a return to risky business in and around Honduras. He is salty, sweaty, and grease smeared from boat maintenance; she is prim, pretty, and innocent in a white sun dress. Her nails are painted, and as she politely nibbles a sandwich with pinky extended, JT’s eyes find “Goodness where before they were lost in Evil.” He watches spellbound as she expertly shucks oysters between delicate sandwich bites. Smitten by her proficiency with the shucking knife, he falls in love, fancying himself her protector, and follows her to her landlocked home in rural Jonesville.
JT’s love of sailing and beaches inspires him to tow his forty-foot ketch to the cow pasture adjacent to Marianne’s family farm where he plans to build a new life, securing the boat on jacks and living in it until his new dwelling—a beach house on stilts—is completed. He hopes Marianne will find it cozy, that it will be their little love nest, but she prefers the comfort of her parents’ big house. His new life becomes fraught with other frustrations: intruding cows, obnoxious turkeys, snakes, an overabundance of country radio stations, the unease of Marianne’s family and neighbors over his pretentious arrival, rednecks, and general boredom.
He develops a coping mechanism that includes floating in a blue rubber swimming pool picked up at the local Big Lots, booze, full-auto target practice with a duct-taped Uzi, Led Zeppelin, and weed. It doesn’t take long for him to realize he’s losing his edge. Soon, without even trying (or trying not to), he finds himself back on the Money Trail.
His life has become a tug-of-war between opposing desires. On one hand there’s comfort and safety in a pastoral setting with a beautiful woman who is “part rose petal on a church pew, part Hemi-powered oyster eater”; the competing impulse is toward the rush of adrenalin that rises out of being in the middle of—facilitating, even—major deals, minor uprisings, and military coups while sailing between Caribbean islands and sea ports or trekking through Central American jungles infested with deadly beasts and humans. One lifestyle provides peace and health, the other excitement and big paydays.
Built upon this see-saw, the narrative comprises an assortment of bizarre situations, flashbacks, and plot twists that illustrate the concept of being caught between two extremes. JT Harrington is—miraculously, after the hard knocks he experiences all along the money trail—a living, breathing, dazed-and-confused enigma seeking resolution. He discovers, though, that reconciling his past with the present and finding an inhabitable space between requires perhaps more fortitude, cleverness, and courage than he can muster.
One thing’s for sure, though: on the money trail it’s hard to tell the good guys from the bad. This never mattered much for JT before Marianne. Now, looking through a different colored lens, he’s presented with new possibilities, but in order to reinvent himself, he must conquer old habits and disentangle himself from former connections that are as twisting and binding as the kudzu surrounding his cow pasture. We eagerly join JT on his adventures to discover whether or not he is up to the task.
Our compulsion continues as we delight in the intrigue, liveliness of language, colorful characters, dark humor, and harrowing action. For the thrill-seeker residing in all of us, Blue Rubber Pool provides the giddy catharsis of a twisting, plunging ride on the theme park’s most unique roller coaster. Board at your own risk. Once the ride starts, you won’t be able to get off.
December 28, 2018
Blue Rubber Pool is one of those stories that pulls you in from the beginning and lets you have a good time with the descriptions of the ways the story plays out. The first chapter gets you interested in the narrative right from the early pages and compels you to keep reading through to find out how everything will eventually come together as you get deeper into the story and nearer to the unexpected conclusion.
There is something satisfying for every kind of reader: mystery, action/adventure, surrealness, crime/heist, a little romance (though it's not the focus), a little comedy, with some real recent historical references interspersed. Even the brief asides & cerebral observations help the reader to understand what JT is going through, the thought processes behind experiencing those events, sometimes in a kind of trippy way. If you like Carl Hiaasen, Hunter Thompson, David Foster Wallace, etc, with more of a contemporary voice, you will find a lot to enjoy in Tim Bryant's storytelling.
There is something satisfying for every kind of reader: mystery, action/adventure, surrealness, crime/heist, a little romance (though it's not the focus), a little comedy, with some real recent historical references interspersed. Even the brief asides & cerebral observations help the reader to understand what JT is going through, the thought processes behind experiencing those events, sometimes in a kind of trippy way. If you like Carl Hiaasen, Hunter Thompson, David Foster Wallace, etc, with more of a contemporary voice, you will find a lot to enjoy in Tim Bryant's storytelling.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews