Chon is the Navy SEAL with the hard-case approach. Ben is the cerebral type who turns his talents toward hydroponic marijuana growing. Winslow also uses this book to establish Ben and Chon as tight friends and perfect yin-yang opposites. Then there are Stan and Diane, more bourgeois types in that they want to run a bookstore where they can sell “The Tibetan Book of the Dead,” “The Anarchist Cookbook” and “On the Road.” It is Stan and Diane who introduce blotter LSD into Laguna’s already-fertile drug mix. Enough of its characters sleep in a cave-style commune to make any kind of breeding a possibility. Winslow says of John) to make Doc a major candidate in this story’s paternity sweepstakes.

And there are enough runaways (“They all think they’re Joni Mitchell, and he hates Joni Mitchell,” Mr. “Like Jesus, except Jesus walked on water and Doc rides on it.”ĭoc knows a lot of girls. “Doc moves along, handing out tacos like fishes and loaves,” Mr. John arrives in the book just in time to see an older sun-kissed surfer attracting a crowd at the local Taco Bell. Your classic grem - T-shirt and board shorts, huaraches, shell necklace.” And: “The difference between a surfer and a hippie? A board.” “Tall for his 14 years, wide shoulders, long brown hair that looks like it was cut with hedge clippers. Winslow introduces John as a boy: “Dig young Johnny Mac,” he writes. We already knew that Chon’s father was John McAlister, also a drug dealer, who served a long jail sentence and had a less than warm relationship with his son. Winslow is an equal-opportunity White House critic. The Bush administration gets its share of swipes, since Mr. (“Ben likes the new Potus because the cat smoked weed, snorted crack, wrote about it and got away with it,” that book said.) But “The Kings of Cool” starts out in 2005, when the three-way friendship was only beginning to heat up and their ingenious business plan was just being born. Winslow has written a prequel called “The Kings of Cool.” He set “Savages” at the time just after President Obama was elected. It’s not named “Savages” for nothing.Īnd back on the page, where Ben, Chon and O exist most comfortably, Mr. Winslow keeps most of the mayhem implicit, his book does involve brutal abductions and a high body count. Winslow’s heavenly understatement without drowning in the violence of drug warfare will have an answer. Next month they will show up in Oliver Stone’s film version of “Savages,” and the question of whether a movie can sustain Mr. None of them was available for an encore. Winslow finished his tale about three dope-dealing Laguna Beach hipsters - two guys and a girl: Ben, Chon and O - they were floating out to sea on God’s great cosmic surfboard. It was not possible to finish Don Winslow’s lean, mean, piercingly funny 2010 “Savages” without wanting more.

Savages by don winslow