DESIRE PROVOKED

by Tracy Daugherty ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 28, 1986

Sam Adams is a cartographer. But, in his early 40s, he's mapping out his life with less precision than the terrains, underwaters, and aerial landmarks of his profession. His wife Pamela has left him, taking their two kids (the younger of whom, the boy, clearly is disturbed) in order to pursue a late career in photography and politics. This leaves Sam to live in his house alone (subject to a shadowy nighttime intruder) and try at the office to adapt to some of company's less-than-honest wheeler-dealerings. Given an all too welcome chance to travel, he finally goes with an oil-seeking expedition, as its map-maker, to Greenland--on a square-rigger named Desire Provoked. There he almost dies in a blizzard--and is later returned to his life at home at least a little more attuned to the opportunities for action it provides. In this first novel, Daugherty's chief conceit--the cartography--serves him well, providing aphorisms with honed metaphorical edges: ""He has drawn enough jagged coastlines and isolated islands to be a firm believer in accidents""; ""Caprice, he thinks, occupies most of the world's space""--which underpin the book's discontinuous, cool (but not too cool) style, suited to the vagrant authorial eye. You also honestly believe in Adams' expertise--he seems a genuine map-maker. But the book's structure--quick minimalist takes and fade-outs--mars it; Daugherty seems capable of more stamina, so that whenever Adams seems in a true fix (the exception is the blizzard scene), the spell seems perversely broken--glary cleverness shouldering away durability.

Pub Date: Jan. 28, 1986

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Random House

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1986

Categories: FICTION