5/30/2023 0 Comments The comedians by graham greene![]() ![]() Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. (I have known folks from the Caribbean who are visibly upset when the term “Tontons” is mentioned.) More people die in this book than in a typical Friday the 13th horror movie. The drive around in US military style jeeps and they all wear cheap sunglasses. ![]() Key figures in the story are the Tontons Macoute, perhaps the original “Men in Black.” They are the ‘police’ who run the country basically terrorist authorized to kill, rape, torture and steal. This was the time after Castro’s takeover of Cuba. Despite the blatant brutality of their regimes, the US supported the Haitian dictators “Papa Doc” Duvalier from 1957-1971, and his son, “Baby Doc,” until 1986, because they were anti-communist. The real story is the brutality of the Haitian dictatorship. He attempts to run the hotel and has an affair with a South American ambassador’s wife who is obsessed with her child. His mother dies and leaves him a hotel/cabaret in Port-au-Prince. Disengaged from his courtesan mother and even unsure what his last name really is, he has worked in European restaurants and sold forged low-end paintings. There are so few Europeans in Haiti that all these passengers and some of the crew enter the story again. The novel starts with him returning to Haiti on a cargo ship with just a handful of passengers. ![]() Our main character is a world weary drifter. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |