Name: Banshee and the Sperm Whale
ISBN: 9781948920148

Jake Camp

A sunset wedding in Kona. An ugly secret discovered on an iPhone. Experimental philosophical marriage counseling. Time travel. Diver Neurons and Angel Neurons separated by Sea and Sky. Banshee and the Sperm Whale takes the reader on a journey into the unconscious mind of Martin, a biracial chef from Denver who suffers from a particular kind of overabundance. Along the way, a modern allegory unfolds, and everyday notions about self-knowledge, the nature of good and evil, and possibility of finding meaning and spiritual significance in the face of inexorable uncertainty are turned inside-out.

Banshee and the Sperm Whale

A. D. Knapp

Reading Banshee and the Sperm Whale, one can almost picture Jake Camp with a perfected quantum mechanic's grip, playfully dealing from the bottom of a superposition as the novel seems to exist in two states simultaneously. 

In one, it's the story of a relationship that zips along, propelled by a short chapter structure, intriguing characters and an easy style. In the other, the reader is presented with the full spectrum of the human experience. Love, loss, sexuality, morality, human weakness, free will, time travel and the sometimes unbearable weight of just being human. Like an ocean of water set aswirl atop the head of a pin, Camp allows these two states to co-exist. One informing the other. Adding layers neither could achieve on its own. It's a novel at play on the edges of the possible and it's brilliant. Highly recommended.

Banshee and the Sperm Whale

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