A Novel and A Literary Detective Story

The book I discuss in this post is not a crime novel, but the history of its discovery and attempts to identify the author is a detective story.

In 2001, Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr.,  chair of the Afro-American Studies Department at Harvard University, discovered a holograph in the Swann Galleries catalogue that would change African American literature, especially our ideas about fictional slave narratives.

The Bondwoman’s Narrative was published in 2002 by Warner Books and edited with introduction by Professor Gates. The manuscript had never been edited by a professional editor or ghostwritten by a white person as many of the fictional and nonfictional slave narratives were. If the manuscript could be authenticated and the author’s identity confirmed, the novel would prove to be the first written by a former female slave in the United States.

The novel itself and the efforts of several scholars to establish the author’s identity make discussion of this fascinating book difficult.  A detailed discussion of the novel is necessary to examine the strengths and weaknesses of plot and characterization and the historical context. So, I discuss it only briefly. The effort of scholars to verify the author’s identity is a literary detective story deserving its own critical analysis. In his brilliant and illuminating essay “The True Story of American’s First Black Female Slave Novelist” on the New Republic website, Paul Berman discusses in-depth the novel and the efforts to prove the author’s identity.

The Bondwoman’s Narrative by Hannah Crafts: A Fugitive Slave Recently Escaped from North Carolina is the full handwritten title on the first page of this important black sentimental novel. Hannah, the literate narrator / protagonist, tells the story of her escape from a plantation in Virginia, her capture and resale to the Wheelers in North Carolina, and finally her escape to New Jersey. Aunt Hetty, an old white woman who lived near the plantation where Hannah grew up, defied the law and taught her to read. Like many slaves who learned to read and write, Hannah knows the Bible and begins each chapter with a biblical epigraph. Her tendency to philosophize shows she has read widely.

In the philosophical tone she displays throughout the novel, Hannah seemingly accepts her condition: “’I am a slave’ thus my thoughts would run. ‘I can never be great; I cannot hold an elevated position, but I can do my duty, and be kind in the sure and certain hope of eternal reward.[']”.  She is also a perceptive observer of people:  “Instead of books,” she “studied faces and characters, and arrived at conclusions by a sort of sagacity that closely approximated to the unerring certainty of animal instinct.” This talent for wearing the masks to conceal her feelings and thoughts from the masters, which many slaves learned to do, allows her to adjust to the different circumstances in which she finds herself.

The former slave clearly mastered the techniques of novel writing that made her an exceptional storyteller. She reveals the effect of slavery on master and slave, especially how supposedly kind masters supported the peculiar institution. In the preface she asks, “Have I succeeded in showing how it blights the happiness of the white as well as the black race?” My reply is a resounding yes.

The efforts of several scholars to identify the author is a detective story as exciting as the novel. As Timothy Davis writes in Salon, ink and paper experts helped Professor Gates establish that the novel was written in the 1850s. His analysis of the prose revealed the author was familiar with and borrowed from Jane Eyre and Bleak House. Unfortunately, he was unable to establish her identity. Once the novel was authenticated, the detective scholars went to work to solve the mystery: Who was Hannah Crafts?

An article in the New York Times dated September 18, 2013, claimed that Professor Gregg Hecimovich, chairman of the English Department at Winthrop University in Rock Hill, South Carolina, had found additional evidence that revealed the author was named Hannah Bond, a slave on the plantation of John Hill Wheeler in North Carolina. Professor Hecimovich planned to publish his discovery in a book titled The Life and Times of Hannah Crafts.

The novel is important because, as Professor Gates writes, “Holograph, or handwritten, manuscripts by blacks in the nineteenth century are exceedingly rare…” Rarer still are ones that haven’t been ghostwritten or edited by a white writer or editor.

Daddy's Girl Weekend

Sounds like the name of a drive-in movie from the 1960s, right? Not this time. The Daddy's Girl Weekend I'm referring to is an annual writers' conference hosted by my friend and prolific mystery novelist Carolyn Haines. Carolyn was kind enough to invite me to be on the "faculty" for this year's DGW, which was held several weeks ago in Mobile, Alabama. Here's a link to the conference info.

Since the Gulf Coast isn't far from our home, my wife joined me for the trip--we drove down on the afternoon of Thursday, April 3, and spent three nights and three days at the Riverview Plaza Hotel in downtown Mobile. It rained most of the time we were there, but at least it wasn't cold: I've had quite enough of the Winter of 2013/2014. Until recently, I suspected that the weather gods had confused Mississippi with Minnesota.

As for the conference itself, I thoroughly enjoyed it, and--as I do at all events like this--met some truly interesting folks. One attendee was a former writer for Saturday Night Live and the screenwriter for many of the Eddie Murphy movies; one was a New York Times bestselling author of "cat mystery" novels; one was a cardiac surgeon who'd just sold his second medical thriller; another was an author, agent, and ordained priest; several were former bookstore owners; and so on and so on. I've often heard that writers might be weird but they're always fascinating. And one of the best things about DGW is that it's a readers' as well as a writers' conference. As any Bouchercon attendee will tell you, having fans there makes a big difference.

The time passed quickly. Each night after the final session my wife and I went out for some great meals (usually seafood), and during the daytime hours at the conference I was a member of four different panels, I was moderator of another, I was interviewed by a lady from Suspense Magazine, and I signed and sold a lot of my books, all of which was fun. I also learned some useful things about writing and marketing. Actually, I don't think it's possible to spend several days in the company of dozens of other writers and NOT learn something useful about either writing or marketing or both.

In my case, and on the off-chance that this might be helpful to others as well, here is some of the information I came away with:

E-predictions

One of the panels I attended included the founder of a publishing company that deals in both printed novels and e-books. He mentioned to the group that although all of us realize that electronic publishing is here to stay, it is not necessarily "the way of the future." In fact he said sales and e-sales have recently begun to level out, and that it appears that e-books will not completely take over the publishing world as was once predicted. Disagree if you like--this was one man's opinion--but he insisted that the traditional novel will remain with us, side-by-side with its e-counterpart, for the foreseeable future.

To most of us who were present, this view was not only interesting but encouraging. I love my iPad and I enjoy e-books--especially when traveling--but it pleased me to hear an expert in the field say that the old-fashioned printed novel will still be around for a while.

Untangling the Web

In another session, a lady who spoke about blogging and social media happened to mention a place called Weebly.com, which provides a free, easy, and effective way to build a personal or business web site. This captured my attention, since for twenty years now both writers and readers have been telling me I need my own site. Deep down, I knew they were right, but I just never got a round tuit. I had several reasons not to take the plunge: on the one hand I didn't want to find and hire a webmaster and I didn't want to then have to sit around and wait for him or her every time I decided changes needed to be made to the site; on the other hand, I damn sure didn't want to take the time to learn how to design the whole thing myself. Besides, slacker that I am, I've always just pointed folks to my page at my publisher's site.

But I had to agree that this sounded good. Bottom line is, when we returned from the conference I Googled the Weebly program and decided to give it a try. As a result, I put together my own web site in a matter of hours, and at no cost. It's nothing flashy and is still a work in progress, but it's functional and I'm satisfied. If you have time, visit www.johnmfloyd.com and take a look.

Curses--foiled again!

The third piece of information that stuck with me wasn't something I didn't already know, but it's something that all of us occasionally need to be reminded of. A person who worked for a publishing company told the group that writers shouldn't be overly discouraged when their novels or short story manuscripts get rejected. She pointed out that publishing is a business. We writers tend to forget that. Publishers have employees just like other companies, and have payrolls to meet. When they decide to pay a writer an advance and produce a novel, they have to be reasonably certain that enough of his or her books will sell to exceed the amount they spend. Similarly, when a major magazine buys a story, the editors need to be confident that that story will help them sell copies, not only of that issue but of other issues in the future. If these things don't happen, that publisher or editor or product won't be around very long. The decision-makers are right when they say it's nothing personal.

Does it hurt when we're rejected? Sure it does. But rejections should prod all of us to persist and work harder. If this whole writing gig was easy, anyone could do it.

Denouement

On the Sunday that ended the DGW conference my wife and I drove back home (it was still raining, all the way), and when we got here I couldn't help feeling a bit like the traditional story character, returning to his routine after his mythical adventures, a little older and wiser than he'd been beforehand.

I just hope they invite me back next year.

Crime Cruise-Costa Rica

Harbor at Limon, tug ready to assist

During his fourth and final visit to the New World in 1502, Columbus discovered a land he named Costa Rica, meaning the rich coast. Unfortunately, there was no gold or treasure to be found here. The place he first anchored was an island near the future port of Limon, the Spanish word for lemon.

Costa Rica is a country where Central America narrows before joining the South America continent at the land bridge of Panama. It has coasts in two different oceans while its capital, San Jose, lies in the Central Valley between the two coasts.

Our boat dock in rain forest  for the Tortuguero Canal

The Tour

We docked on the Caribbean side in the harbor of Limon, but as we had been reminded by our guide, Costa Rica is a third world country and poverty is widespread in Central and South America. We saw no tourist resort areas and therefore assumed that today's rich coast was on the Pacific side of the country. Online tourist ads seem to favor that side.

Toucan eating a piece of fruit

Our first stop on the tour took us to the Tortuguero Canals, a series of natural and man made waterways which connect Barra de Colorado and Tortuguero with the port of Limon. Here, a short boat trip on the canal showed us some of the various wildlife native to the area, such as small caimans, sloths, a variety of birds and a lizard nicknamed the Jesus Lizard for his ability to run across short stretches of water on his hind legs without sinking. Naturally, the lizards we saw and photographed didn't perform for us. Must have been camera shy.

Bird walking on water lilies

Next came a short walk through a portion of the Veragua Rain Forest. We lucked out, it wasn't raining at that moment. At the end of the walk, we entered the Sloth Sanctuary, which raises seized and abandoned wild animals until they can be released back into nature. Underneath a large net dome, we found two types of sloths hanging in trees and on caretakers, two types of small monkeys running amok up and down vegetation, a very friendly Toucan who wanted a fruit snack and several turtles in ponds. Many of the caretakers were student volunteers from Germany, Austria and other countries.

taking a break from running amok

Back on the bus, we rode a few miles to a banana plantation and packing house. All the banana bunches still on the trees were wrapped in blue canvas bags to protect them from insects. When the bunches reach the right maturity, they are cut and tied onto a cable system which delivers them to the packing station. Here, the blue bags are removed, they get water baths in two different large tubs under an open air shed and are then graded and packed into cardboard boxes for shipping. We learned there are three upright stalks on a banana tree: the mature stalk with a bunch of bananas, the  shorter stalk that will bear bananas the following season and the just growing stalk replacing the mature one cut from the year before.

The Crime

Casinos are legal in Costa Rica and while there were no laws on the books about online gambling, U.S. and Canadian entrepreneurs started setting up and operating online sports books and poker rooms in this Central American country during the late twentieth century. Not having a physical location in the U.S. allowed them to evade U.S. gambling laws, and by keeping their accounts in other foreign countries, the online gambling sites also avoided paying taxes on their massive profits to Coasta Rica. Shortly afterwards, the U.S. government passed the Internet Gambling Prohibition Act of 1999, banning online sports books and poker rooms. Since these operations were based in Costa Rica, the online gambling entrepreneurs thought they were safe. Their business flourished into about 2006 when they soon found they had a problem whenever they arrived at an American airport during a money run or for other reasons. Arrests were made. Then, the FBI stepped up the pressure by coming to Costa Rica to make raids and arrests. These defendants were quickly extradited back to American soil on charges of money laundering and violations of the Wire Act. In 2006, President Bush signed an even more restrictive law, the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act. However, it was the Black Friday Raids of 2011 that finally broke the back of the big online gambling organizations in Costa Rica.

To depict the heyday of this time period, Ben Affleck and Justin Timberlake starred in a recent movie, Runner, Runner about the online poker rooms in Costa Rica. The movie showed scenes of the piles of money made by the entrepreneurs, violence between rivals, drug usage by those involved, their hedonistic life style and the coded software written by employees to cheat the online customers.

As a side note, one of my prior racquetball partners had a son who left a sports book in Vegas several years ago to work online gambling in Costa Rica. However, he was smart enough to get out of the business and out of that country before the Black Friday Raids.

Yep, we'd go back to Costa Rica, but I think we'll try the Pacific side next time.

See you in Jamaica in two weeks. That Jimmy Buffet's got some nice rum drinks there in his establishment, not to mention the one free Margarita for every customer.

The Dark Side of the Moon

by Eve Fisher

There's something about great change that brings out the dark side in people.  The worst time to be a witch wasn't in the so-called Dark Ages, or even the Middle Ages.  The worst time to be a witch was from 1400-1700, i.e., during the Renaissance, Reformation, and the first Scientific Revolution.  It was as if all that new knowledge, new ideas, new applications, new procedures, new stuff, scared everyone so much that they had to run out and kill some people just to prove that everything was the way it always had been, world without end, Amen.

Anyway, during that time over 100,000 people were prosecuted all over Europe and colonial America, and 60,000 were executed, most of them women.  (The exception was Iceland where, for some reason, the majority were men.)  Why women?

(1) Misogyny.  Women were looked down on, especially by the authors of the 1486 "Malleus Maleficarum" ("The Hammer of the Witches), who were two Dominican monks who were obviously scared to death of women, but had never met any (some of the physical details are anatomically impossible).  Anyway, they accused witches of infanticide, cannibalism, evil spells, sexual misconduct of every kind imaginable, as well as having the power to steal penises.  (I can't help but think of Pat Robertson on feminism:  "a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians."  Maybe reincarnation is real.)

(2) Fear.  Women were the midwives and the healers.  Male doctors could only be found where the money was, in royal courts, big cities, noble palaces.  Everywhere else, women did the job.  So, if anything went wrong, you could blame it on witchcraft:  I mean, these women could heal you with their weird potions and incantations, so obviously they could also harm you with their weird potions and incantations.  It had to be witchcraft, right?

(3) Ageism.  Many of the supposed witches were old women. Old women have always gotten terrible press, and still do. Women are supposed to stay young and beautiful and sexy, and when they don't, and get wrinkled and bent and gray and toothless, no one wants them around.  Especially if they get crabby with it.  (And no wonder they get crabby...)  Today they're told it's their own damn fault they're so unsightly.  In the 17th century, they could get burned.

(4) Greed.  In Salem Village, in colonial Massachusetts, while the very first accused witches were old and poor women, most of the rest of them were women of property.  And by being convicted and executed for witchcraft, all their goods were forfeit - to the village, to the church, to the minister, who all gained a great deal of money and land.  This was why Giles Corey, for example, refused to plead guilty or innocent and submitted to being pressed to death:  that way, he had not been tried, and his property could not (and was not) confiscated.

But what I find most interesting about the whole literature of witchcraft is this:  the reports of the witches' sabbaths and the behavior of the devil are all strikingly similar to the reports of current-day alien abductions. The narrative is largely the same:  Abduction/seduction (which usually takes place at night, in a remote area, away from other people), levitation/flight, strange but humanoid figures, a place (witches' circle or spaceship) and a ceremony, probing with cold instruments (please use multiple definitions of this word) here, there, and everywhere (there is a real obsession with genitalia), inexplicable paralysis, inexplicable time lapses, the bewildered return, the strange places on the body that either experience a chronic ache or no feeling whatsoever, the post-event depression and/or confusion - it's all the same.  True, the devils of that time looked completely different from the aliens of modern times, but people in the 1400-1700's in widely disparate countries described the devils and demons pretty much exactly the same, just as people in modern times in disparate countries describe aliens pretty much exactly the same.  (In neither group is anyone seeing, say, a pink rhinoceros with tentacles.)  I repeat:  The narrative is the same, in character and plot.  Only the costuming changes.

So, what's going on?  Is this an interesting reaction to times of great scientific and social change in people who are (more or less) fragile and disturbed to begin with?  Is this Carl Jung's collective unconscious?  Is this what happens when forbidden desires, despair, frustration, alcohol and/or drugs, hormones, and/or sleep paralysis, combine?  Or is this really happening, and all that's happened is that the devil had changed his look?  Or have the aliens changed theirs?

       


Just something to mull over in those late night hours.  Pleasant dreams.

The Saracen's Head

Way back when (and I mean wa-a-a-y back, in the late Bronze Age), my 4th grade teacher was Miss Sheehan.

There were something like twenty of us in the class, maybe a few more, and a roomful of nine-year-olds, pretty much equally divided between girls and boys, must have been an unruly bunch, but she managed us well, not with iron discipline, either, but by holding our interest. One of the tools in her kit was to read aloud to us, THE BORROWERS and THE LION, THE WITCH, AND THE WARDROBE, for instance, but the one that sticks in my mind is THE SARACEN'S HEAD, a book by a guy named Osbert Lancaster.

Re-reading it, all these years later, I'm struck by the fact that it wears so well. One thing is that it's very mischievous, the kind of story that a grown-up can read to a kid, and not get bored. It's about a guy who goes off to the Crusades, very reluctantly, we might add, but the journey makes a man of him. He starts out a figure of ridicule, basically a sissy, bullied by his formidable mom, and comes back bronzed and confident, a wimp no more.

Lancaster uses the conventions with a healthy dose of irony. The castle the hero sets out from, on the South Downs, is called Courantsdair. His father, Sir Dagobert, dies as the result of being shot from a catapult at the siege of Limoges. The guy who sends young William off to the Holy Land is one Abbot Slapjack. And so on. Lancaster illustrated the book, too, and the pictures are terrific, filled with sly detail. There's an undercurrent of casual cruelty, as well, and a fair amount of arterial spray, more than satisfying to a bloodthirsty fourth-grader.

We decided to dramatize it. (In retrospect, of course, I can see Miss Sheehan had this up her sleeve the whole time, and we were only persuaded it was our own idea.) Here's where her genius comes in. We didn't use a script. We all knew the story. So with all the speaking parts, the hero, his mom, the cousin he's supposedly engaged to, the Saracen warrior and his manservant---my role---the beautiful Greek princess young Sir William rescues, the attendant lords and ladies, we improvised the action and the dialogue.

It was an involved undertaking, costumes, and props, the whole nine yards, so everybody was in on it, onstage or off. And here's another thing. After rehearsals, we put on two actual performances, one for the so-called Lower School, grades one through six, and one for the Upper School, seventh through twelfth, but it was for us---our parents weren't invited. In other words, you didn't have a bunch of adults jockeying for position with their Kodaks, embarrassing the cast, so we had fun. The play was a great success, both times. We hammed it up no end, and had 'em rolling in the aisles, and not because they found us foolish, either. I'm speaking here of the Upper School, the older girls, who probably thought themselves too sophisticated for a fourth-grade production, but they got into it. For one thing, they got the jokes and puns, which went over the heads of the first, younger audience.

The point I'm making here is about method. By giving us free rein, and letting us trust our instincts, Miss Sheehan allowed us to inhabit the story, and make it our own. It was a transforming experience, for me, anyway, and I think for everybody else. I don't know if another teacher has ever influenced me as much as she did. Somebody once remarked that a good teacher shows you where to look, but they don't tell you what to look for, which is a lesson for a story-teller. Let it seize you.

Back to the Carnival

       Next month author Herman Wouk turns 99.

Herman Wouk

     
       In a writing career that has spanned over 70 years Wouk has produced an impressive array of literature. His first novel, The Man in the Trench Coat, was published in 1941. Wouk’s specialty has been the historical novel, particularly war tales and military-based fiction. We know him for Aurora Dawn, published in 1947 when Wouk was still an officer in the Navy. We know him for The Winds of War and its sequel War and Remembrance. He wrote both the Pulitzer prize winning The Caine Mutiny and the theatrical version, The Caine Mutiny Court Martial. But Wouk is equally at home in other settings. Marjorie Morningstar focuses on the aspirations of a would-be actress, and Young Bloodhawk (with some autobiographical underpinnings) chronicles the rise and fall of a young writer. Wouk’s latest work, The Lawgiver, published in 2012 when Wouk was 97 -- a Hollywood tale of an attempt to film the life of Moses told through an epistolary array of letters, memos, articles, and text messages -- prompted high praise from the Washington Post:

in some essential way, this book about a movie about a book is also about the very act of writing books. Wouk reminds us of the eternal value of storytelling while he shows 30- and 50- and 80-year-old whippersnappers how it’s done.

Sunset Point, Providenciales, Turks and Caicos

     All of this, however, is not strictly intended as an homage to the incredible career of Herman Wouk. Rather, it is an homage to one particular novel, which you may have never heard of unless you (like I) frequent the Caribbean. And yes, we are about to head south again -- this time to the Turks and Caicos (specifically, to Sunset Point on the island of Providenciales) for a family reunion with my brother Graham and his wife Nik.  We'll get back to that Herman Wouk novel in a little while, but first some background.

       There are very few islands in the Caribbean that Pat and I have not visited over the years. This trip we are settling down in one place, but most of the time we island-jump.  As you head south in the Caribbean it is like going back in time.  The further you go, the more apt you are to stumble upon the West Indies of the 1950s or 1960s -- small towns, secluded beaches dotted with small locally-owned beach front hotels, restaurants and bars. These are islands where large cruise ships never anchor and couldn't tie up even if they wanted to.

Island Windjammer's 24 passenger Sagitta

       For almost 25 years we cruised the small islands of the West Indies on the tall ships of Barefoot Windjammers, until the company went under back in 2007. Since 2009 we have continued to sail on the tall ships run by Island Windjammers, a small company founded by stalwart fans of Barefoot Windjammers. Island Windjammers ships, Sagitta and Diamant, arose from the ashes like phoenixes and now visit the same islands that have always been Windjammer favorites -- including many out of the way places like St. Vincents, Bequia, Statia, Carriacou and Union Island, where secluded Chatham’s Bay is about as great as it gets. Following the trade winds to these unfrequented islands -- mesmerized by the shimmering turquoise, watching for that illusive flash of green at sunset, walking the cobbled streets where activity slows under the sun -- who wouldn't begin to dream, just a little, about chucking it all; about pulling up  roots and heading south for good. Ahh, yes. For good. 

Bequia Book Shop

       And that is what Herman Wouk’s Don’t Stop the Carnival is all about: The Caribbean. You might have to look pretty far to find a copy of Carnival on the shelves of a bookstore in the United States. But it’s everywhere in the Caribbean. If you are walking down the sidewalk street that runs along the bay in Port Elizabeth on Bequia, just duck into the shade of the Bequia Bookshop. You will find a stack of copies. The same will likely be true at the Gaymes Bookshop on St. Vincents or at Nathaniel’s Book and Sports Supplies on St. Lucia. Or try the gift shop at any island hotel. At each of these you will stand a good chance of securing a copy of Wouk’s hilarious, sad and cautionary tale of what ensues when Norman Paperman, blinded by the beaches, breezes and bougainvillea, takes a deep breath and decided to forsake New York to run the Gull Reef Hotel on the mythical (but oh so familiar) island of Kinja. 

       Wouk was not the first author to set a story in the Caribbean. Alec Waugh did it in the 1955 bestseller Island in the Sun, set in Grenada, but now remembered mostly for the title song sung by Harry Belafonte in the 1957 movie adaptation. Ian Fleming used the Caribbean in several novels. Agatha Christie “went” there for A Caribbean Mystery in 1964. Even Stieg Larsson opens The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets Nest with Lisbeth Salander idling the time away on Grand Anse beach in Grenada. But you are unlikely to find any of these tales at “down island” book stores.

       So what is it about Don’t Stop the Carnival that keeps it on the shelves and next to the beach chairs of the tourists and expats who populate the beaches of that magical string of islands to our south? Several things, I think. First, the central character in the book is really the Caribbean itself -- its beauty as well as the rickety, thrown-together nature of its governments and infrastructure. Wouk portrays the alluring charm of the islands (embodied in his fictional Kinja) while also showing the dark underbelly. We understand both why we want to live there as well as why actually doing so might drive us crazy. Second, Wouk accomplishes all of this while walking gracefully the thin line between comedy and tragedy. I laugh my way through Don’t Stop the Carnival every time I read it, but the message of the book is ultimately a sad one of failed and unrealizable dreams. The book, written in 1965, is both dated and timeless -- despite its setting, now 40 years ago, it continues to resonate because of its understanding and love of how the Caribbean works (and doesn't work). 

Ruins of the Royal Mail Steam Packet Co.,
which later became the Royal Mail Inn on Hassel Island

       Like many other of Wouk’s works (pardon my alliteration!) Don't Stop the Carnival is premised on real life experiences. In the 1960’s Herman Wouk and his late wife Betty managed the Royal Mail Inn, a small Caribbean hotel located on Hassel Island, which is directly across from the ferry depot at St. Thomas' Charlotte Amalie Harbour. If you find yourself taking the ferry from St. Thomas to Tortola, visit the Petite Pump Room (upstairs above the ferry depot) for a drink and gaze across the harbour -- what you will see is Hassel Island.  And those abandoned buildings and ruins are what used to be the Royal Mail Inn, a real life dream that proved unrealizable for Herman Wouk. So, just as his war novels were based on his experience in the Navy during World War II, so, too, Don’t Stop the Carnival rings with authenticity simply because Herman Wouk wrote what he knew all to well. 

The Jimmy Buffett album

       Unlike Island in the Sun, Don’t Stop the Carnival was never filmed.  It did, however, spawn a musical adaptation written by another hero of all Caribbean expats and wannabe expats, Jimmy Buffett, in collaboration with Herman Wouk himself. I recommend that album, where Wouk cameos as narrator, as heartily as I do the original book.  The score and libretto are more operetta than musical -- taken together they "tell" Wouk's tale in its entirety.  It’s all there in song, from dream to disillusionment. You will, however, have a difficult time tracking down the album. It’s a little out of the ordinary for Buffett, and like the original book by Wouk caters best to the fanatical few who return whenever possible to the islands.  That tends to be a narrow (but deep) market.  

       Don’t Stop the Carnival ends with Norman Paperman’s wife Henny telling him “time to go home, Norman.” We all get there. But where we love to be is at the beginning, when Wouk sets the stage: 

Kinja was the name of the island when it was British. The actual name was King George III Island, but the islanders shortened that to Kinja. Now the names in the maps and guidebooks is Amerigo, but everybody who lives there still calls it Kinja.

The United States acquired the island peacefully in 1940 as part of the shuffling of old destroyers and Caribbean real estate that went on between Mr.Roosevelt and Mr. Churchill. The details of the transaction were, and are, vague to the inhabitants. The West Indian is not exactly hostile to change, but he's not much inclined to believe in it.

Meantime, in a fashion, Amerigo was getting American-ized; the inflow of cash was making everybody more prosperous. Most Kinjans go along cheerily with this explosion of American energy in the Caribbean. To them, it seems a new, harmless, and apparently endless, carnival.

       Want to try that again with music, pictures, and Herman Wouk narrating?  No problem, Mon.  Just click here!