Book Review: Pacific

Pacific by Trevor J. Houser is an interesting look at what a parent will do to try to save their child.

In the novel, a police chief on a remote Puget Sound island navigates his young son’s deadly brain disease and strained marriage. His son’s illness has put a lot of stress on his marriage due to having to care for their son and also disagreeing about next steps. Their son has had multiple surgeries and may not live much longer. Chief Bell has heard of a mysterious and allusive Austrian doctor who operates in Guatemala and has supposedly had luck operating on kids with the same brain issue. But his wife does not want to go to Guatemala and chase after a doctor who may or may not be the real deal nor does she want to put her son through another dangerous surgery. Bell doesn’t understand how his wife could possibly not want to pursue this. So he kidnaps his son and with the help of a friend who owns a boat, they begin to sail from the Puget Sound to Guatemala.

The story was really interesting, but there were times where I wasn’t sure what was going on. I didn’t understand if this was just a realistic fiction story about a man who would go to desperate lengths for a chance to save his son or if this was all in the Chief’s head and was symbolic because crazy things happened like being chased by a bounty hunter and befriending two large Norwegians who are with two prostitutes and then they keep running into them at different locations. There were just so many parts that seemed so tall-tale-ish that I couldn’t help but think this was all some elaborate story in his mind about saving his son and it all symbolized something. But that wasn’t really made clear so I could be totally wrong lol.