A White Merc with Fins

by James Hawes

Book Overview

The dazzling debut of a new voice in fiction, this is the funny, unexpected story of a balding, thickening 28-year-old who, having spent the bulk of his twenties avoiding a career in the quasi-black... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0679442251
• ISBN13: 9780679442257
• Release Date: February 1996
• Publisher: Pantheon Books
• Length: 289 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 5.8" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Absolutely the greatest book I've ever read.

This is an amazing book that hits its pace immediately and never lets up. It's a tremendous take on contemporary British society delivered in a similar fashion as the mid-'90's films of John Hodge, Andrew MacDonald and Danny Boyle, as well as the novels of fellow Britwits and pop culture addicts Irvine Welsh and Nick Hornby. However, as good a writer of personalities as Hornby doubtless is, there is NO WAY he could have written this book. "A White Merc With Fins" has a very developed and intricate plotline that moves despite sufficient character development that never actually becomes the story itself.The story itself deals with a stew of complexities involving some of the issues evident within mid-'90's London; drug use, sexual identity, racism, politcal activism, and beneath it all the unspoken hang-ups of class identity within a modern society that strives to distance itself from a history of strict classism...but can't quite seem to find the plot in doing so.Any number of these traits would make an interesting enough story on their own...but in this book they serve as mere sandwich spreads over the meat of Hawes' actual story. The novel takes place within a matter of days leading up to a bank heist planned by a man (the book's narrator) who, approaching the sell-by age of thirty, has accomplished absolutely nothing during his adult life. He has no proper home of his own, no career, no plan for his life...and he sees, in the glances afforded into the window of a walk-up across the way from his own quarters, the life that awaits him lest he do something drastic to change his fortunes.He has no plan for his life...so he develops "the Plan" to rob a bank.Naturally.Why didn't I think of that?"The Plan" involves the narrator, a small circle of close friends including his new girlfriend with a fondness for 501 jeans that accentuate her perfectly flat stomach and, uh, questionable bodily grooming habits, a Quentin Tarantino fetishist, the brother of an ex-girlfriend who dreams of opening a bake shop in his hometown of Zaragosa, a local gangstar, a fat Welshman from the coalmines who is delightfully gay, a terminal AIDS patient otherwise thriving as a money launderer, a half-Jewish skinhead, and the Irish Republican Army.If all that isn't sufficient to stoke your curiosity to the point of giving this book a read, I simply don't know what could possibly be wrong with you...pick it up AT ONCE and have at it; you will not regret it.

Ian says it's "brilliant", and that's good enought for me

I have a demented, twisted, demonic, hilarious, shrewd, trained chef of a friend who has earned his pessimism the hard way: he's lived under the regimes of Thatcher (England), Botha (S.Africa), and Reagan and Bush (USA). Now he's back in S.Africa working as a chef at a resort out in the middle of bloody nowhere, sharing the desert mountains with his new wife, kids, and the occasional rogue elephant...Oh yeah, he sent me an e-mail and told me he nearly shit himself laughing when he read "A White Merc with fins". Take my word for it--also twisted, tri-cultural, youngish, and mildly confused--YOU MUST TRUST IAN and read this book.

extremely positive

"A White Merc with Fins" touched a chord in my soul. I'm 24, LMC, educated, shiftless, lost in a dreadful demanding world that expects those without a trust fund to work like stink for the basic pleasures of life while those 'with' can "look up a friend in publishing" when uni finishes. This book isn't about 'haves and have nots' though, its the story of a man who wishes simply to save his own life. The underlying theme is a critique of western society and our crazy mixed up priorites. What 'normal' society sees as deviance, ie drugs and sex, are simply Hawes' way of expressing what I felt to be his contempt for the basic fabric of our society; money. By having a positive, active and supremely human character acting in a 'deviant'manner, and (by the way) succeeding Hawes introduces the idea that society's idea of deviance is simply the grossest type of narrow-minded hypocrisy. I mean really, isn't it ever so slightly strange that money and mummy are very very similar? To be purely hedonistic, to thumb our noses at the establishment (to borrow from eighties punk), to escape and save our own lives. Thats the best idea I've heard in ages. 'A White Merc with Fins' is simply brilliant. An intelligent, thoughtful, enjoyable and exciting first novel. Go James Hawes, we need more of you. Check out 'Rancid Aluminium' too. Very different, so don't go in expecting the same thing. Definatly check them both out, this educated hedonist absolutly recommends.

Good book

"A White Merc With Fins" was a very amusing portrait of slacker Euro-trash. Similar in theme and narration to "Trainspotting."Recommended for those who wish to have a laugh and take a break from the real world.

A satisfying and entertaining novel.

At first I feared that this novel might be lightweight and best left to the terminally hip, but was soon pleasantly surprised. The author has a keen eye and descriptive powers not just for "the London scene", whatever that might be, but for the human condition. His insights into human relationships and into the sheer weight that society places on an individual to make something of him/herself are simultaneously brutal, witty, and profound. This is the best novel I have read since Rabbit Is Rich, placing it in top-drawer company