- Paperback: 200 pages
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0916870316
- ISBN-13: 978-0916870317
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Product Details |
Product Description
Product Description
“Gifford uses the charged story of . . . an apprentice smuggler as an occasion for his own literary and cinematic smuggling—from Conrad, Hemingway, Camus, John Hawkes, Howard Hawks, Welles and Ozu, among others—and to discover a new literary form.”—The New York Times Book Review“A poet’s nuanced prose runs through Port Tropique . . . a spellbinding story.”—The Washington Post“A strange, disturbing . . . intriguing . . . impressionist painting of a book.”—San Francisco Chronicle
--This text refers to an alternate
Paperback
edition.
Revolution is simmering in the heat of the battered Central American town Port Tropique, where protagonist Franz Hall is an “intellectual Meursault in a paranoid Hemingway landscape, a self-conscious Conradian adventurer, a Lord Jim in the earliest stages of self-willed failure” (The New York Times). The ineff ectual hero spends his days drinking and observing people in the zócalo and occasional nights involved in an ivory-smuggling operation threatened by impending government siege, yet always persistent are memories of Marie and what was lost. In this sinuous narrative of dislocation and remorse, Barry Gifford details Franz’s mundanity and the bizarre cast of characters swirling around him.
The author of more than forty published works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, which have been translated into more than twenty-five languages, Barry Gifford is an American writer in the European tradition, and one of the few contemporary American writers whose characters are familiar to audiences around the world.
About the Author
The author of more than forty published works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, which have been translated into more than twenty-five languages, Barry Gifford is an American writer in the European tradition, an hommes des lettres. His novel Wild at Heart was made into a film by David Lynch.
--This text refers to an alternate
Paperback
edition.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
4.0 out of 5 stars (3 customer reviews)
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Stan Getz fans, they're everywhere., Jun 13 2000
By courtney J angermeier - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Port Tropique (Paperback)
It was a dark and stormy night. In the banana republic of Port Tropique guns, money, sex, power, and politics are shuffled slicker than a Vegas blackjack dealer. All the dames have red lips and cold eyes and cruise the bar without leaving their seat. The men wear panamas drawn down over their eye and speak in grated muffles. The local authorities are unwashed louts and everything is sweat and heat and panting in the dark. It's every ginjoint in every movie in the world rolled into one little book with nothing to do with Ben Franklin. Great for a Saturday afternoon.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Five stars for a brilliant noir outing, Aug 5 1998
By A Customer - Published on Amazon.com
Barry Gifford is a poet (in fact) with a will to communicate. He drew each chapter as an artist, framing his stalled antihero with keen intelligence. We have become so saturated with standardized images and imagined protocol among gangsters/CIA bagmen/gun runners that it takes an author of rare imagination to write immediate prose that pulls us from the cookie-cutter version, back into the human mind. I've lent this book to many friends and they all raved, except the last one, who failed to return it. I wish he or she would deliver the goods.
3.0 out of 5 stars
Revolution, Smuggling, and Existentialism, Mar 8 2010
By stoic - Published on Amazon.com
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Port Tropique (Paperback)
Port Tropique is an atmospheric novel about a down-on-his-luck American (Franz) who becomes a smuggler in a fictional Central American country. As luck would have it, a revolution topples the country's government. Trapped by his own malaise in a failed society, Franz has few guideposts to direct him home.Author Barry Gifford crafts a novel with great characters and atmosphere. Franz is somewhat likeable, but anyone who has been through middle age can sympathize with his feelings. You cheer for Franz, in spite of his many flaws. Gifford renders Port Tropique in vivid color. You feel the steamy heat, taste the cold beer, and hear the gunshots.
Port Tropique's weakness is plot. Gifford does not quite know what to do with Franz, so the ending is unsatisfying and feels "tacked on." The book's plot is similar to the plots of existential films (such as The Passenger). Franz runs in circles, and Gifford implies that even if he tried to shape his destiny, it wouldn't make a difference, anyway.
I am not as "high" on Port Tropique as are the other two reviewers. It is a short, engaging novel. (One can easily read it in a sitting). But, given its potential, the novel is unsatisfying. Port Tropique is worth a look, but I can't give it more than three stars.
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