Island of the Sequined Love Nun

Take a wonderfully crazed excursion into the demented heart of a tropical paradise — a world of cargo cults, cannibals, mad scientists, ninjas, and talking fruit bats. Our bumbling hero is Tucker Case, a hopeless geek trapped in a cool guys body, who makes a living as a pilot for the Mary Jean Cosmetics Corporation. But when he demolishes his bosss pink plane during a drunken airborne liaison, Tuck must run for his life from Mary Jeans goons. Now theres only one employment opportunity left for him: piloting shady secret missions for an unscrupulous medical missionary and a sexy blond high priestess on the remotest of Micronesian hells. Here is a brazen, ingenious, irreverent, and wickedly funny novel from a modern master of the outrageous.

Takes readers on a joy ride … Island feels lighter than air as it rushes by, delighting and terrifying us.”
— Columbus Dispatch

“Humor that seamlessly blends lunacy with larceny … habit-forming zaniness ….”
— USA Today

Reading Guide for Island of the Sequined Love Nun

Introduction

Take a wonderfully crazed excursion into the demented heart of a tropical paradise — a world of cargo cults, cannibals mad scientists, ninjas, and talking fruit bats.

Our bumbling hero is Tucker Case, a hopeless geek trapped in a cool guys body, who makes a living as a pilot for the Mary Jean Cosmetics Corporation. But when he demolishes his bosss pink plane during a drunken airborne liaison, Tuck must run for his life from Mary Jeans goons. Now theres only one employment opportunity left for him: piloting shady secret missions for an unscrupulous medical missionary and a sexy blond High Priestess on the remotest of Micronesian hells.

Here is a brazen, ingenious, irreverent, wickedly funny novel from a modern master of the outrageous.

Topics for Discussion

The author spent a great deal of time studying on Pacific Islands. Were there any elements of island life portrayed in the book that surprised you or particularly intrigued you? Were there aspects that you would like to know more about? Do you think that comedy translates across cultures? Would the people of the islands find this story funny? Why or why not?
At one point in the book a parallel is drawn between Tucker Case and Hamlet. Other than the examples drawn in the short biographical sketch of Tuck, can you think of any other similarities between these two men of indecision?
Cargo cults and the worship of WWII bomber pilots by natives in the Pacific are real phenomena. Do you think the author was trying to draw a connection between cargo cults and the pyramid make-up sales structure of Mary Jean Cosmetics? Will the intrusion of Western culture destroy the cultures of the Pacific Islands?
The value of transplant organs is a major motivating factor for the Sky Priestess and her doctor husband. Given that more than three million dollars was bid on eBay recently for a kidney placed up for auction on the Internet, before the company pulled the listing, do you think that organ smuggling will become a major crime wave in the future?
Toward the end of the book Tucker Case has a change of feelings about the way he has treated women throughout his life. What do you think caused this? The influence of Kimi? Sepie? The Sky Priestess? Or perhaps a combination of many events?

Author's Notes from Island of the Sequined Love Nun

Very early in my writing career, I realized that unless I did something about it, I could very easily spend the majority of my life locked alone in a room making squiggly black marks on a computer screen. When it came time to write my fourth book, I decided to go someplace new, experience something that a lot of people hadn’t experienced, and bring it home to a novel.

While studying cultural anthropology, years before at Ohio State, Id learned about groups of islanders in the Pacific who had formed whole religions around American bomber and transport pilots who had landed on their islands during World War II. Years later, anthropologists had gone to those islands and found altars built in the shape of airplanes, and natives waiting for the return of their pilot messiahs.

What if one of those pilots actually felt some responsibility toward the people who worshiped him? I thought. So off I went to Micronesia, a chain of literally thousands of islands that stretches for more than two thousand miles across the Pacific. (FYI: There was no real reason to have picked Micronesia as a setting, but when I used to wait tables, this guy would come into the restaurant-bar where I worked and talk about the weird stuff that happened to him on Truk and Yap, so that was were I went, thinking that weird might just work for me.)

As intended, it got me out of the office. After a couple of months in the islands living among natives and doing a lot of reading, I put together my own little religion, a reluctant messiah to carry the theme, and some sacred icons who didn’t know enough to keep quiet. It turned out to be quite an adventure.

Sincerely,
Christopher Moore