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Everything good in Joe Magellan's life-family, teaching career, sanity-has been undermined by his baffling compulsion: breaking the world record for flagpole-sitting. Through the years Joe has made seven attempts at the record, his best effort a measly eleven days. Oranges begins on January 20, 1981, the day Joe is 'cured' of his compulsion at Dr. Malcolm Kerridge's 'Out, Damn Obsession!' seminar. Alas, the charlatan's cure does not take. Joe immediately stumbles upon the perfect flagpole, sixty feet high, and, before long, to the horror of his wife and son, he climbs up and settles in on a ten-foot-square redwood platform for one final assault on the record, while Clover and Nate run the little café below. Joe's pursuit of the pole-sitting grail is disrupted by Clover's budding artistic aspirations; by Nate's rebellion at J. Edgar Hoover Middle School; by the seductions of Joe by an ex-seminar mate and of Clover by an art gallery owner; by the commercialization and massive popularity of the pole-sitting enterprise; and by the ruthless Shipwreck Blake, who both terrorizes and inspires Joe with assistance from the spirit of the original pole-sitter Simeon Stylites, the 5th century monk who dwelt on a pillar for thirty years.
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Reviews
"Not many storytellers would have the courage or imagination to attempt a novel about a failed flagpole sitter, and even fewer would have the chops to bring it off. But I now know there is at least one such writer, and his name is Richard Martin. His Oranges For Magellan is a madly lyrical romp of a tale, told with great authority and populated with characters you won't easily forget, especially the self-doubting but big-hearted flagpole sitter himself, a reluctant hero you'll want to hang with until the tender and redemptive end. Highly recommended!"
Jim Nichols, author of Blue Summer, winner of the 2021 Maine Book Award for Fiction
"In his wonderful debut novel, Oranges for Magellan, Richard Martin has created a marvelously comic yet profound quest tale for our times. The hero is Joseph Galileo Magellan, a burnt-out substitute teacher who journeys no farther than to the top of an orange flagpole in an attempt to break the world's record for flag-pole sitting. As in all quest stories, there are helpers and tricksters, temptations and obstacles, including the interior ones of self-doubt and guilt. The novel shimmers with vivid images, brilliant allusions, and a free-flowing play of thought, emotion, and paradoxical action within inaction. Thought-provoking and hilarious, intelligent and moving, Oranges for Magellan will speak deeply to anyone who has ever felt driven to do something difficult, however absurd or seemingly impossible. To anyone who tries, fails, and tries again. And to those who accommodate a loved one's passionate pursuit. In short, it speaks to our humanity. I loved every page."
Joanna Higgins, author of A Soldier's Book, A Novel of the Civil War; Dead Center, and oth