Diving for Carlos, or, Heroes’ Welcome Blues

In this part-stream of consciousness, part-science fiction, part-modern day mythology, Hector returns to his hometown, Silvis, Illinois, after Carlos visits him in a dream one year after committing suicide. Hector sees the dream as a sign to rediscover his past and that of his hometown. Jackson bases the characters Scoto and Lucian on the Great Plains myth of the two trickster brothers. Scoto secretly runs the town through political and financial channels.

Jackson dedicates more than one chapter to Scoto’s speeches, vitriolic diatribes aimed at the innocent Father Lucian, who attempts to stop Scoto’s abuse of people and the environment. These explicit speeches could offend sensitive readers and detract from the other characters and the plot of the story. Hector, Lucian, and their friends attempt to stop Scoto’s destruction of their town before Hector leaves to fight in Vietnam.

While large sections of the book are difficult to plow through because of their explicit content, Jackson creates a three-dimensional world. By the end of the novel, the reader knows Hector and his friends well and empathizes with their story of growing up in a corrupt town and fighting in a destructive war.