Like Sabbatical (1982), the Barth novel that immediately preceded it, The Tidewater Tales is more topical than Barth's earlier works, which tend to view social and political activism in ironic ways. This novel deplores in uncharacteristically tmironic terms CIA "dirty tricks" and greedy business's toxic waste dumping, not to mention the U.S. government's nuclear brinkmanship that Barth implies is doomed to lose its balance eventually. Barth's setting is the Chesapeake Bay, only a few miles down the Potomac River from the nation's capital and site of CIA headquarters, numerous espionage "safe houses," a variety of military installations, and an increasing number of toxic "minidumps." From time to time the characters catch glimpses of chilling clandestine operations, most memorably symbolized by the floating corpse of J. A. Paisley, a CIA operative who has died under mysterious circumstances. The still-lovely Chesapeake Bay is the location of the characters'...