Product Description

Eddie Delano is an underachieving, recalcitrant young man desperate to avoid life's absurdities and cursed to experience them in total. His sidesplitting quest begins in war-torn Vietnam but moves quickly to rural California and a circus-like college campus filled with oddball professors, rabid women's libbers and misguided leaders of the social revolution. His helpers and guides include the ultimate con man, a stoned-out hippie, and the wicked woman of his dark desires. Despite their shenanigans and the obstacles provided by the comically inept sheriff's detectives and the maniacal vegetarians of Baba Rama, Eddie finds his treasure. Or does he?

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #741327 in Books
• Published on: 1999
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 170 pages

Review
An American campus novel with some of the biting wit Heller brought to war in Catch 22 applied to academia. -- The Rough Guide to Cult Fiction, April 2005

[Orozco] just hit the jackpot ... [with his] satire about the excesses of idealism on college campuses during the 1970s and the hypocrisy that was rampant among supporters of the decade's biggest causes, such as the women's liberation movement and affirmative action. -- The Leader, Jan. 23, 1999

Customer Reviews

Delano is a stitch!
Eddie Delano and his world are a stitch! And like surgical stitches, Orozco's satirical needlings of domestic and college life sting as well as correct social and psychological deformities that characterized the surreal sixties. No target, large or small, eludes the author's jaundiced eye (check out the back cover art) or his sharp-honed pen--you'll feel its prick on every page. One asks no more of good satire. Combining the complete arsenal of satirical, humorous, comedic, slapstick, and burlesque techniques, this novel starts you laughing and wincing on page one, with Eddie's admission that he shot off his big toe to avoid Viet Nam, and sustains it through the hilariously implausible and implosive self-destruction of the whole sick crew. And they are legion: hustlers, cheaters, political poseurs, worm farmers, gender freaks, and doobie brothers (all of whom inhale). If you participated, especially as a student, in those hallucinogenic days, had children who did, taught that generation, or just nostalgically miss those sweet, sweaty summers of love, this is the book for you. Almost forgot. There's some interesting sex, too.

A Complete Scream!
The misadventures of Eddie Delano at college are still true today decades later. As a recent college graduate, I can attest to this. I had the pleasure to hear the author read his book at The Reader's Edge Bookstore in Montrose, CA and it's even better with his deadpan delivery. After hearing him read the first chapter, I knew I had to have this book.

A light-hearted satire for post-modern Guys
I say Guys with a capital G because this is written for us, and not for women. Sometimes I share a book with my wife, but not this one...not that it's X-rated, but it revels in Delano's pursuit of women. It is also NOT a very political book, in spite of some of the other reviews here. Instead, the focus is on the cynical and often funny way Delano exploits affirmative action programs, runs into or avoids zealots from both the left and the right, and generally learns to manipulate the system for personal gain.

This was a fun read for me. I realized right away it would not be heavy, and it had minimal personal or intellectual insight. But that was OK. I think Orozco is saying indirectly, we all take these things way too seriously, let's pursue some happiness in life.

And the best thing about Delano is that he DOES learn some lessons along the way, about honesty, love, and devotion. I won't give away any surprises, but the plot spirals into a situation where he finally has to make some choices, and thanks to making the right friends, he makes the right choices. That, and no political theme or social statement, is the greatest reward of reading Delano.