The World's Largest Dinosaur — B.K. Smith

Part literary memoir, part erotic travelogue, and part design notebook, The World's Largest Dinosaur is all heart in its blunt depiction of one man's descent into the vortex of his own insecurity in an attempt to identify whatever essential truths are to be found in art, in humanity, and in himself. It is an unflinching account filed from the front lines of the human condition, and as such it travels a road rarely portrayed in contemporary non-fiction. Having been commissioned to undertake a design project that is, in fact, the world's largest dinosaur, the author proceeds to come gradually, poignantly undone as he is faced with duplicitous project managers, cultural gray zones, and his own self-defeating tendencies while toggling back and forth among continents, women, and sanity. After having designed a world-class water park in China, the author has dropped out of polite society to live with his grandmother in California when he receives a call inviting him to design an 80-foot-high dinosaur in Canada. With few if any options he heads off to the Great White North to learn more. After accepting the project he heads East, where the dinosaur will be fabricated, and travels back and forth among China, the Philippines, and Singapore in order to oversee the work and attempt to apply some -- any -- set of standards to the wayward enterprise that is the construction of his “Regina.” Propped up by drugs and alcohol, he rubs shoulders with all manner of human indiscretion on the city streets and alleyways in China and Southeast Asia. Upon hitting rock bottom a series of remarkable events and coincidences lead him to a path that allows him to reclaim control of his life and his art.