Chasing the Last Whale is a novel about rage. Elliot Finell-an angry, maimed young man-meets Trey Gillespie, who is even angrier and more crippled in body and soul. They become friends, despite their utterly dissimilar backgrounds, temperaments, and worldviews. Elliot's rage has cost him his health, his relationship with his family, and the love of his life, a moody Southerner with a secret. While navigating his strange friendship with Trey, Elliot tries to heal his damaged body. He finds that despite Trey's negativity, this "evil Okie medicine man" somehow gives Elliot the strength to carry on.
When Trey suffers a crisis, he turns to Elliot with a request. Elliot can't agree to help. In response, Trey commits a desperate act that triggers a memory Elliot has long repressed. Suddenly aware of the truth about himself, Elliot must decide if he will maintain the anger that has become habitual, the main component of his identity. By understanding what has really crippled him, he's finally able to see how it has damaged so many others: his lost love, his family, the beautiful young woman who is his implacable nemesis, his ambiguous British friend, and of course Trey, a nuclear reactor of rage, suffering, and bitterness.
Clarity leaves Elliot faced with the most agonizing choices of his life.
Chasing the Last Whale examines intent and outcome. What constitutes a crime? How does victimhood end? Can mercy be immoral? Is love a choice? Does trauma always destroy? And can almost any subject be made funny?
About the Author: Thomas Wictor was born in Caripito, Venezuela, and has lived in Texas, the Netherlands, Norway, Great Britain, Oregon, Japan, and California. He earned a bachelor's degree in history from Lewis and Clark College and has worked as a stevedore, library archivist, conversational English teacher, editor of the world's first online newspaper, voice-over actor, delivery driver, process server, field representative for a document-retrieval service, scale-model builder, and music journalist.
He is the author of seven books and the planet's only expert on World War I flamethrowers, an accomplishment he attained completely by default, since nobody else is interested in them. A former Contributing Editor at "Bass Player, " he was once a semi-professional bass guitarist in Tokyo.
After publishing "Ghosts and Ballyhoo: Memoirs of a Failed L.A. Music Journalist, " he decided to create the "Ghosts" Trilogy. The three titles-a memoir, a novel, and a diary-are united by their humor, honesty, and dual mission to banish and entertain.Each alsoexplores the theme of conquering a traumatic past by transforming anger over loss into gratitude for what once was.
Volume Two of the "Ghosts" Trilogy is "Chasing the Last Whale, " a fictional black comedy about love and suicide in contemporary wartime America.
Volume Three is "Hallucinabulia: the Dream Diary of an Unintended Solitarian."
The characters introduced in the memoir and romanticized in the novel are finally set free in the diary, as they are no longer bound by law, nature, or even reality. A unique literary effort, the "Ghosts" Trilogy shows what happened, what the author wished could have happened, and how the battle between the two consumed him.
