A RENDEZVOUS IN HAITI
Stephen Becker
London: Collins Harvill, 1987. NF/NF. Unclipped jacket in mylar. First English
Edition. FICTION. 223 pages. "The year is 1919 and the war to end all wars has
ended. But the U.S. Marines are still engaged in battle in Haiti, a
heartbreaking land of heat and poverty. The struggle to bring peace and
stability to the corruption and superstition that are rife in this magical
country, doomed by ignorance and greed, yet unquenchably alive, is here
depicted with a vast sympathy for human love and the uncertainty of human
nature. In his dealings with the ambiguous hostility of a proud, untaught black
nation, the surly racism of his own men, the murderous tactical genius of a
mysterious rebel called the "white Caco", and the ill-timed arrival of his
fiancee, Caroline Barbour, Lt Robert McAllister proves himself an exemplary
officer. He must therefore lead a platoon against the inevitable peasant
uprising. Under their great leader Martel, the Cacos oppose both their own
elite and the US Marines with equal fury; Caroline is abducted as a bribe for
Martel and as a mobile hostage to freeze the Marines in place, and McAllister
must seek her out. His only companion on his trek through the hinterland of the
island, surrounded by voodoo and an alien land, is the intelectual Father
Scarron, a black emprisoned between two cultures, and above them both. On
converging trails to Martel's Caco village, evading fighting bandits, cursing
the implacable sun, McAllister and the white Caco finally confront each other at
a jungle ambush that becomes a rendezvous with truth and death." OUT OF PRINT.
$35.00
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