Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates - Hardcover

The fierce invalid in Tom Robbins's seventh novel is a philosophical, hedonistic US operative very loosely inspired by a friend of the author. "Sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll are enormously popular in the CIA", claims Switters. "Not with all the agents in the field, but with the good ones, the brightest and the best". Switters isn't really an invalid, but during his first mission (to set free his ornery grandma's parrot, Sailor, in the Amazon jungle), he gets zapped by a spell cast by a "misshapen shaman" of the Kandakandero tribe named End of Time. The shaman is reminiscent of Carlos Castaneda's giggly guru, but his head is pyramid-shaped. In return for a mind-bending trip into cosmic truth--"the Hallways of Always"--Switters must not let his foot touch the earth, or he'll die.

Not that a little death threat can slow him down. Switters simply hops into a wheelchair and rolls off to further footloose adventures, occasionally switching to stilts. For a Robbins hero, to be just a bit high, not earthbound, facilitates enlightenment. He bops from Peru to Seattle, where he is beguiled by the Art Girls of the Pike Place Market and his 16-year-old stepsister, and then off to Syria, where he falls in with a pack of renegade nuns bearing names like Mustang Sally and Domino Thirry. Will Switters see Domino tumble and solve the mystery of the Virgin Mary? Can the nuns convince the Pope to favour birth control--to "zonk the zygotic zillions and mitigate the multitudinous milt" and "wrest free from a woman's shoulders the boa of spermatozoa?" Can the author ever resist a shameless pun or a mutant metaphor?

The tangly plot is almost beside the point. Switters is a colourful undercover agent, and a Robbins novel is really a colourful undercover essay, celebrating sex and innocence, drugs and a firm wariness of anything that tries to rewire the mind, and Broadway tunes, especially "Send in the Clowns". Some readers will be intensely offended by Switters's yen for youth and idiosyncratic views on vice. But fans will feel that extremism in the pursuit of serious fun is virtue incarnate. Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates is classic Tom Robbins: all smiles, similes and subversion. --Tim Appelo

"Superb."
-- "New York Post
"As clever and witty a novel as anyone has written in a long time ... The plot is sustained by [Robbins's] usual virtuoso writing and brilliant flashes of insight. ... Robbins takes readers on a wild, delightful ride. ... A delight from beginning to end."
-- "Buffalo News
"Dangerous? Wicked? Forbidden? You bet. ... Pour yourself a bowl of chips and dig in."
-- "Daily News, New York
"Robbins is a great writer ... and definitely a provocative rascal."
-- "The Tennessean
"Whoever said truth is stranger than fiction never read a Tom Robbins novel. ... Clever, creative, and witty, Robbins tosses off impassioned observations like handfuls of flower petals."
-- "The San Diego Union-Tribune

" Superb."
-- "New York Post"
" As clever and witty a novel as anyone has written in a long time ... The plot is sustained by [Robbins's] usual virtuoso writing and brilliant flashes of insight. ... Robbins takes readers on a wild, delightful ride. ... A delight from beginning to end."
-- "Buffalo News"
" Dangerous? Wicked? Forbidden? You bet. ... Pour yourself a bowl of chips and dig in."
-- "Daily News," New York
" Robbins is a great writer ... and definitely a provocative rascal."
-- "The Tennessean"
" Whoever said truth is stranger than fiction never read a Tom Robbins novel. ... Clever, creative, and witty, Robbins tosses off impassioned observations like handfuls of flower petals."
-- "The San Diego Union-Tribune"

"Superb."
-- "New York Post"
"As clever and witty a novel as anyone has written in a long time ... The plot is sustained by [Robbins's] usual virtuoso writing and brilliant flashes of insight. ... Robbins takes readers on a wild, delightful ride. ... A delight from beginning to end."
-- "Buffalo News"
"Dangerous? Wicked? Forbidden? You bet. ... Pour yourself a bowl of chips and dig in."
-- "Daily News," New York
"Robbins is a great writer ... and definitely a provocative rascal."
-- "The Tennessean"
"Whoever said truth is stranger than fiction never read a Tom Robbins novel. ... Clever, creative, and witty, Robbins tosses off impassioned observations like handfuls of flower petals."
-- "The San Diego Union-Tribune"

"Superb."--"New York Post"
"As clever and witty a novel as anyone has written in a long time ... The plot is sustained by [Robbins's] usual virtuoso writing and brilliant flashes of insight. ... Robbins takes readers on a wild, delightful ride. ... A delight from beginning to end.-- "Buffalo News"
"Dangerous? Wicked? Forbidden? You bet. ... Pour yourself a bowl of chips and dig in."--"Daily News," New York
"Robbins is a great writer ... and definitely a provocative rascal."--"The Tennessean"
"Whoever said truth is stranger than fiction never read a Tom Robbins novel. ... Clever, creative, and witty, Robbins tosses off impassioned observations like handfuls of flower petals."--"San Diego Union-Tribune
"

"Superb."—"New York Post"
"As clever and witty a novel as anyone has written in a long time ... The plot is sustained by [Robbins's] usual virtuoso writing and brilliant flashes of insight. ... Robbins takes readers on a wild, delightful ride. ... A delight from beginning to end.-- "Buffalo News"
"Dangerous? Wicked? Forbidden? You bet. ... Pour yourself a bowl of chips and dig in."—"Daily News", New York
"Robbins is a great writer ... and definitely a provocative rascal."—"The Tennessean"
"Whoever said truth is stranger than fiction never read a Tom Robbins novel. ... Clever, creative, and witty, Robbins tosses off impassioned observations like handfuls of flower petals."—"San Diego Union-Tribune
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