J.P. White has a terrific book out titled Every Boat Turns South.  Every Boat Turns South mixes memoir-like adventure with a moving coming-home tale. The book opens and closes in Florida, but its sultry and terror-filled center is set in the Turks & Caicos Islands and in the Dominican Republic. By interweaving the Florida bedside scenes with Matt’s confessional account of his wild life in the Caribbean, the author subtly builds sympathy for his ne er-do-well drifter, as Matt slowly reveals the truth about Hale by coming to understand his own impulses and needs and by cherishing, through memory, all that his father had taught him. The writing in both sections forcefully lyrical and full of maritime detail (sailors will love this book) suggests an autobiographical prompt, but clearly the author is in command of a style that effectively serves his complex plot. The flashbacks pulse with sensuality, the take on island natives and tourists is nothing less than superb: The hotel swarms with interracial couples strung together like rosary beads . . . white women, pale as chalk, lean into black men like they ve found the Rosetta stone. White men pull at strings of mulatto women like taffy. Meringue and rum, greed and sex rule. Everything. Everyone. As one of the novel s shrewd and exotic characters says, we all have our weaknesses once we get to the islands.

In the last 35 years, J.P. White has published essays, articles, fiction, reviews, interviews and poetry in over a hundred publications including The Nation, The New Republic, The Los Angeles Times Magazine, The Gettysburg Review, American Poetry Review, and Poetry (Chicago).  He is a graduate of New College in Sarasota, Florida, Colorado State University and Vermont College in Fine Arts. He is the author of five books of poems and a novel, Every Boat Turns South.

We interviewed J.P. to find out more about his exciting new book, Every Boat Turns South.

Thank you for this interview, J.P.  Your book has a really interesting title.  Can you tell us how you came up with it?

There are three dimensions to the title I played with.  The sailboat in the story is bound from West Palm Beach to St. Thomas in the B.V.I.; the hero’s life is a wayward journey of little defeats and the father in the story is dying so it might be said his life has gone south.

Your book could be read like a memoir…are there aspects of your life story in this and how so?

I spent a couple of years in the Bahamas and Caribbean delivering boats. My father was a boatbuilder and life-long sailor and my parents lived a gypsy life in Florida for twenty-five years.

What kind of research did you have to do to write your book?

I returned once to the Domincan Republic to re-acquaint myself with some of the harbors that are in the novel.

What elements of your story would you find that are the most adventurous? Can you give us an example?

The sailing across the body of water between the Bahamas and the upper Caribbean known as the Thorny Path.  It’s a treacherous area filled with reefs, sharks, fast currents.  The Spanish gave this area its name because they lost so many ships there until they discovered how to use the Gulf Stream to return to Europe.

How did it feel when you finished the last chapter?  A sense of joy or sadness?

I suppose both sadness and joy because you always wonder whether your story is really done.  Have you realized everything you wanted to accomplish with one set of characters.  On the other hand, great relief.  I did it. Now, for better or worse, the book must finds its own way.

Do you have more books coming out soon?

The next book is called Whiskey & Hard Water.  It’s a prohibition novel in the voice of a thirteen-year old who sets out in a sailboat to rescue her father from three men who have kidnapped him and taken him to Canada.  Here is the first paragraph from Whiskey and Hard Water:

My dog Bob and I polish off a slab of peach pie when I see this lapstraked boat coasting in without her red and greens. The fireflies pepper this incoming craft and their glow makes me think I’m seeing double through binoculars. Bob looks hard into a moon-shot pathway of his own choosing, and he too is head-cocked and baffled by a boat ghosting in without running lights.

Thank you so much for this interview, J.P.  We wish you much success!

Thanks for giving me the opportunity to talk about my work and the sailing life.

Amazon or Barnes & Noble are the best way to obtain your copies, although it will be available to order in most bookstores. You can visit J.P.’s website at www.jpwhite.net for more information about the book.

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4. Interview with Judi Moreo: Motivational Life Choices: Navigating Difficult Paths
5. Interview with Marilyn Randall, author of My Heart and Soul

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