With Iraq on everyone’s mind, a sardonic and frequently hilarious novel by new author Tom Paine could hardly be more timely. Titled The Pearl of Kuwait (Harcourt, $24), the book tells the story of two GIs involved in Desert Storm who go AWOL in a half-baked attempt to harvest pearls in the Persian Gulf. Instead, they stumble across a lovely and very naked Kuwaiti princess attempting to commit suicide. One of the GIs falls madly in love with the 16-year-old beauty and when she becomes trapped behind enemy lines, he and his buddy set off to rescue her.
Paine, a college teacher in Vermont, has a nice touch with black humor, stressing the comic aspects of his story while reminding readers that there’s nothing funny about war. Though this is his first novel, his collection of short stories, Scar Vegas, published three years ago, was a finalist for the Hemingway Foundation Award, and his fiction has been published in Harper’s and The New Yorker.
Tom Paine will introduce and sign copies of his novel, The Pearl of Kuwait, at the Vero Beach Book Center on Wednesday, April 9, at 7 p.m.
Read the entire article in the April 2003 issue
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