Presents a saga in which scandalous affairs rage behind closed doors, broken hearts are tossed aside, fires rip through the wings of the house and paparazzi lie in wait outside the front door for the tragedy.
The island of Anacapa, off the coast of California, is overrun with black rats which are threatening the ancient population of ground-nesting birds. Alma Boyd Takesue of the National Park Service is campaigning to exterminate them once and for all, but her systematic plan is in danger of sabotage by two notorious environmental activists, Anise Reed and Dave LaJoy. But when Alma's sights turn to the infestation of non-native pigs on the island of Santa Cruz - where Anise was brought up by her rancher mother - the stakes are raised and the debate threatens to boil over into something much more real...
Trained in the way of the Samurai, dreaming of the City of Brotherly Love, Hiro Tanaka impetuously jumps ship off the coast of Georgia - only to wash up on a barrier island populated by rednecks, descendants of black slaves, and a colony of crazed artists. Terrifying one islander - literally - to death, and fleeing not only from the Immigration Agents but also an elderly lady convinced he is Seiji Ozawa, Tanaka is unwittingly caught up in a hilarious and irretievably complicated spider''s web of misunderstandings. His sole refuge on the island, the manipulative and ambiguous novelist Ruth Dershowitz, only draws him in ever deeper... ''Hilarious. A talented entertainer with a beady eye for the absurdities of culture shock.'' GUARDIAN ''Boyle has a fine descriptive eye and peoples the novel with wonderfully absurd characters.'' TIME OUT>
