Island of the Sequined Love Nun

Here's another off-the-wall offering from Moore. I liked this one, but it's was a bit TOO much of an unusual premise to get the extra star. The writing was solid, and Moore's ability to straddle the humorous and the serious is in full effect, but overall it felt like a really bizarre sitcom episode (on premium cable).

The story follows the unfortunate exploits of Tucker Case, a pilot for Mary Jean, the stereotypical holy rolling CEO of a big-time cosmetics company (what you'd expect Mary Kay to be like, I guess). After a really wacky accident involving a prostitute, a plane and Case' penis, he's fired from his job, only to find a new one as an on-call pilot for missionaries on a small Pacific island. Case eventually finds that his employers aren't missionaries, but are trafficking in human organs harvested from the island's native population, the Shark People. The missionary's wife tricks the natives by posing as the Sky Princess, a nude representation that the natives recognize from the nose art of a WWII bomber that landed on their island in the 40's, under the direction of Captain Vincent, who sent the occupying Japanese packing. Yeah, it's pretty convoluted. There's also ghosts, a talking fruit bat in sunglasses, and a transvestite Filipino named Kimi. And a cannibal.

I think the whole menagerie of non-standard characters is what set me off on this one. Case is called a "loser in a cool-guy's body" or something to that effect, but I didn't buy it. He scored with numerous women, always has one-liners and come-backs, and never seemed really behind the 8 ball the way a loser should be. The missionaries were never really fleshed out beyond greedy and immoral. The most interesting aspect of the novel was the depiction of the Shark People who, while just as off-the-wall as everyone else, at least had their culture depicted and explained to some extent. Then there was the whole "cargo cult" aspect, and it went off the deep end.