![]() He also crossed the Pacific on a container ship to refresh his sense of awe. The characters are an engaging bunch-some crusty, some charismatic, some just doing their jobs-all with a touch of local color and all raising as many questions as they answer. Hohn spent time in the company of flotsam gatherers, on the shop floor of a Chinese toy company and with scientists exploring the toxic nature of plastic, and he learned about monster waves and the mysteries of tides and currents. ![]() In prose that varies in tone from reflective to unaffectedly cool to delightfully wide-eyed (“hat misanthrope, what damp, drizzly November of a sourpuss, upon beholding a rubber duck afloat, does not feel a Crayola ray of sunshine brightening his gloomy heart?”), the author follows in the wake of a half-dozen Virgils on a tour through driftology, oceanography, environmental degradation and the economics of toy-making. Could it have made it through the Northwest Passage? Thus began Hohn’s pursuit for an answer. ![]() Ten years later, a yellow rubber duck of the same manufacture, barnacled and tortured by the elements, washed ashore in Maine. Among the lost items were thousands of rubber toys. ![]() In 1992, a crate toppled off a container ship and dumped much of its cargo into the Pacific Ocean. A finely spun chronicle of the wide-ranging quest to track the wanderings of a rubber duck lost at sea, from Harper’s senior editor Hohn. ![]()
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