The Rapscallion Club

ORDER THE RAPSCALLION CLUB WITH A CLICK!

2011-08-26T10:00:00.000-07:00

What do French fry contests, bullet ants, and the lost art of umbrella combat have in common with dead pirates, island treasure and an excoriated Titanic survivor named Sir Cosmo Duff Gordon? A ten year old boy from New Jersey finds out when he travels to Peru by way of an underground tunnel that magically connects the cellar of his house to the basement of the South American Explorer’s Club, an eccentric and possibly haunted establishment chock-a-block with bones, stones, tusks and teeth.

Don’t miss your chance to own an exclusive first edition of Alex Dawson’s THE RAPSCALLION CLUB. Order now!THE RAPSCALLION CLUB MAKES THE PERFECT GIFT FOR YOUR FAVORITE YOUNG ADVENTURER (ages 10 & up).

FREE club tattoo included! Along with several removable documents (incl. a Bartitsu diagram and the instructions to Oichu Kabu, otherwise known as "Japanese baccarat"), each copy of The Rapscallion Club comes with a temporary tattoo. Applied to your shoulder or forearm, this attractive thistle tattoo will be sure to excite the envy of even your squarest friends. FDA approved. Instructions imprinted on back of tatt.

RAPSCALLION CLUB KITS! In addition to the novel, limited edition Rapscallion Club Kits come with a working compass, an official laminated club card, an authentic coin of Peruvian currency, a deck of playing cards, a teaser chapter from the second installment in The Rapscallion Club series (due out next Christmas), and one surprise item.

PLUS: While the book itself comes with three relevant, removable documents, the documents vary from book to book. Privileged kit owners, however, will have in hand all nine documents, which will additionally include an archaeological map of the mysterious Nazca Lines, a schema for cue ball english, the lyrics to the Scottish ballad, "The Battle of Harlaw," and a pivotal page from The Maltese Falcon screenplay. Kits retail at $29.99.

ATTENTION: BOOKSELLERS, LIBRARIES, AND SCHOOLS! Those interested in purchasing multiple, wholesale copies of The Rapscallion Club should contact raconteurbooks@gmail.com. Use "RAPSCALLION CLUB" as the subject heading.

The author, age 10, on his own archeological adventure in Egypt.

PRAISE FOR THE RAPSCALLION CLUB

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"A witty and inventive tale that smart kids, and kids who want to be smarter, will love to read, and make other people read too." World Fantasy Award winner John Crowley, author of Little, Big and The Aegypt Cycle

“Dawson has turned out a grand adventure tale in classic tradition, complete with a brainy but daring boy at the helm, spiced up with secret tattoos and a plot resolution that manages to be at once piratical and scatological, and larded throughout with interesting arcana, historical facts and out-and-out silliness.” Elizabeth Gaffney, former advisory editor for The Paris Review and author of Metropolis

“Rollicking…Dawson’s colorful prose easily evokes the rich, vibrant panels of a Tintin adventure.” Robert Kaplow, author of Me and Orson Welles

"A really entertaining adventure with a cool, underground tunnel, some great cliff-top action, and a hilarious twist at the end that no one will see coming. He had me at viking!" Felix Phillips, 10, son of, and with total agreement of, Arthur Phillips, author of The Tragedy of Arthur and The Egyptologist (note: the word "viking" is in the third line of the book).

"Wild fun. The Rapscallion Club is one grand and delicious piece of storytelling--a tall tale with a sweet heart." Penn/Hemingway award winner Gabriel Brownstein, author of The Man from Beyond

"Extraordinary. Dawson's swashbuckling young adult novel is cause for celebration. Seen through the eyes of ten year old Percy, The Rapscallion Club follows the adventures of a hapless family in search of fortune and glory and ultimately, of course, in search of themselves. Against backdrops as varied as suburban New Jersey and the jungle of South America, young Percy helps to unravel the riddle of a treasure hidden deep within the mysterious island of Chincha Norte.” Booker Prize finalist Paul Watkins, author of The Ice Soldier and Stand Before Your God

“A kid of the eighties, I grew up on The Goonies, and the highest compliment I can pay The Rapscallion Club is to say it reminded me of that boyhood favorite. I loved the quirky, questing spirit and youthful heart of the story.” Greg Attonito, frontman for the American punk band The Bouncing Souls

"Alex Dawson’s The Rapscallion Club is a smart, funny, fast ride of a young adult novel that leaves you wanting more." New York Times bestselling author/cartoonist Patrick McDonnell, creator of MUTTS

“A rip-roaring boys own adventure with a healthy dose of the absurd. Rudyard by way of Roald.” Clay McLeod Chapman, creator of The Pumpkin Pie Show and author of The Tribe, a YA trilogy forthcoming from Hyperion.

"The eccentric feel of a Cornell box filled with fascinating and singular curios in the form of vivid, frequently brilliant sentences and paragraphs." Askold Melnyczuk, founding editor of Agni and author of The House of Windows.

“Indiana Jones meets Harry Potter!” Eric Zala, director of Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation

"Johnny Quest meets The Royal Tennebaums. Wes Anderson should make a movie out of this!" Oscar nominee Robert Festinger, co-writer of In the Bedroom

EXCERPT from THE RAPSCALLION CLUB

2009-03-08T06:52:00.000-07:00

Chapter 13
SOCCORRO

Alex was flat on his back staring up at the wide blades of the palm frond fan. The fan was on, but it did little to dispel the heat. The room felt hot and small and Alex couldn’t sleep. Noneck, on the other hand, snuffled soundly on a second cot only a few feet away. The fan turned round and round. A loose wire hung down from the ceiling mount, intersecting the fan’s cycle and making it tick like a clock.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

Alex opened his book, but he didn’t feel much like reading. Instead he flipped to the glossy pages, the pictures of explorers, hard men in helmets, their steel combs half mooning from their heads like saw blades, their thrusting black beards jutting from their chins like boot toes, their white ruffs oozing from their high necked coats like cake frosting.

Crap, thought Alex. He had missed Percy's birthday. The frosted frill had reminded him. Not that the Rapscallions ever decorated their cakes. Certainly never did ruffled borders. If he knew his uncles, the cake had looked more like the flat, dry marl from which Alex had gently pried two tumi knives and a human tooth on his last dig. He looked at the present on his dresser. It was wrapped in map paper. The paper was full of coiling serpents and sea dragons which, Alex knew, Percy liked. It was folded so that one of the dragons unfurled elaborately across the top, its blow hole right under the knotted cross of white ribbon that tied the package. Noneck had curled the ribbon's ends so they looked like whorls of exhaled water. Noneck was good at those little touches.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

Noneck’s enormous feet stuck up from the clump of sheets bunched at the bottom of the cot, and his big toes twinkled bluely in the moonlight. Alex chuckled. He remembered the time he and Noneck were camping in the Amazon. They had drunk too much Pisco and had passed out by the fire. Noneck had woken in the middle of the night and had somehow mistaken his huge, glinting nails for the eyes of a wild peccary. He’d hit his feet twice with a stick.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

Suddenly, the sheets, black in relief against the gray of the room, moved. Noneck himself was still, but the sheets, mounded like the body of a small animal or the head of a large one, slid slowly up his legs. As the mound moved, it watched Alex. It watched him with Noneck’s blue nails. Soon it sat in the center of Noneck’s chest and blinked. Noneck’s feet still stuck up, but they no longer shined. Clearly, the eyes were Noneck’s nails. They’d somehow been pulled, silently, painlessly, without waking Noneck, from his toes. The thing rose and fell irregularly as Noneck snorted and wheezed. It stared at Alex and Alex stared at it.

“Soccorro,” it said.

Then Alex batted his lids, which had gone dry, once, twice, and rubbed them with a fist. And the sheets returned to the end of the cot, and the eyes turned back to nails, and the nails slid neatly into the tips of Noneck’s big toes, square and gleaming, like blades sliding into the slots of a razor.

CULLEN SKINK AND SIR COSMO DUFF GORDON: Essay by Alex Dawson

2009-02-27T14:11:00.000-08:00

What is Cullen Skink? Who is Sir Cosmos Duff Gordon? What do French fry contests and moustache mugs have in common with pirate ghosts and an underground tunnel to Peru? Over a hundred people, children and their parents, thronged The Raconteur Saturday, January 17, the night of The Rapscallion Club pre-release party, to find out. They also came to listen to bagpiper Bobby Clemens blow out the “Bonnie Banks of Loch Lomond” (the Rapscallions are Scottish), watch father/son fencers David and Sam Liss (their faces hidden behind bulbous cages) demonstrate a sweeping prise de fer (one Rapscallion, Uncle Edmund, is a champion flunger), and enjoy such South American snacks as chichi morada, juice made from purple corn, and churros, a long fluted donut that gets its name from its shape, which resembles the horns of the Churro sheep.

Prior to the party, I’d sent out a somewhat droll notice saying that due to the slow recovery of a captain stung by a deadly jellyfish known as the Sea Wasp, the refurbished Dutch Fluyt delivering the book, while originally slated to drop anchor five days before Christmas, would not arrive until the morning of the party. The bulletin went on to say that once the Fluyt made port, a steamer trunk containing the books would be freighted from an unspecified Weehawken dock to downtown Metuchen in the rumble seat of a rented 1925 Kissel Gold Bug Speedster. Had any of this been true? I asked the kids, flipping the focus during the Q&A. “No!” they shouted, defiant and resolute. And yet, I reminded them, I’d also publicized a bagpiper, fencers, and a trunk bound in heavy chains and hung with a big black lock the size of a bear trap (which, when opened by contest winner Emma Jaques, poured forth gold light). All these things had happened exactly as advertised. “So,” I pressed, “why so sure about the Sea Wasp?” This seemed to shake their conviction, one boy turned to his friend and said, “He’s got a point.” The friend agreed, admitting that his own father had been “bitten” by a “jello-fish” down at Sandy Hook. Two girls scratched their heads, one stroked her chin.

Though I spent many years in Manhattan writing decidedly grownup plays about the sort of people one typically crosses the street to avoid, I’d always wanted to write a book for young adults. I grew up on a horse ranch in Alabama. Town was five miles away. To go to the movies you had to drive an hour and cross the state line. Our black and white TV got only three staticky stations and the side panel got dangerously hot if it was on for more than an hour. Accordingly, reading (and being read to) was our only regular cultural diversion. Fortunately, my mother had been an English teacher (and, indeed, was a writer herself) and the converted fishing cabin in which we lived had a carefully stocked bookcase that ran the length of the longest uninterrupted wall in the house. Each night after dinner, when Doctor—as we starchily called our stepfather, a former army dentist—would repair to the stables to cauterize fraying horse leads with a lighter, Mom would dramatically declaim some novel from her bookcase. Poised on a low slung fainting couch (one of the few objects that bore her romantic stamp in an otherwise rustic residence full of mounted fish and trophy heads) she’d change her voice for each of Richard Adams’ rabbits in Watership Down, scrape it over gravel for Mrs. Zimmerman, the crotchety witch-next-door with a Prince-like proclivity for all things purple in John Bellairs’ gothic trilogy, or offer a burbling impersonation of the British prime minister in Paladin, a novel about a schoolboy, code name Christopher Robin, personally recruited by Winston Churchill. I rarely see my Mom, who still lives down south, a thousand miles from Metuchen, but I can imagine her reading my brother and me The Rapscallion Club, her voice rich and rotund for paterfamilias Nigel, fast and easy for the pool-playing Uncle Jonathan, and all bottled up in her nose for the persnickety Uncle Edmund.

PRE-RELEASE PARTY PHOTOS

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Emma engrossed.

Fans.

Pamela, churros in hand, waits expectantly as Brian ladles the Chicha Morada!

Chloe's fifth cup.

The sweeping prise de fer, otherwise known as "taking the blade."

Rapscallions and upstarts.

Two kids in pink.

Oliver, who looks a lot like Rapscallion Club protagonist Percy, poses with a kid I don't know and a framed portrait of Arthur Conan Doyle.

Emma wins the Rapscallion combo contest, which means she'll have the high honor of opening the chest.

The shop is plunged into darkness in preparation for the unveiling. Gold light spills from the trunk as Emma pries open the lid.

Emma aglow.

Cover illustrator Chris Gash with author Alex Dawson.

Rapscallion Club cover illustrator Chris Gash has a sleeve of ink on each arm. In the book, his skull cherries are described as being on the forearm of a ferris wheel operator named Doc.

Here's his tatt and the line in the book describing it, side-by-side.

Sophie awaits inscription.