Port Tropique [Paperback]

Barry Gifford (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1980

Revolution is simmering in the heat of 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 selfwilled failure" (New York Times). The ineffectual 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. 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.

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

The author of more than forty published works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, which have been translated into twenty-eight languages, BARRY GIFFORD writes distinctly American stories for millions of readers around the globe. For more information, visit www.BarryGifford.com. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 200 pages
• Publisher: Not Avail; First Edition edition (October 1980)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0916870316
• ISBN-13: 978-0916870317
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #10,771,799 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Stan Getz fans, they're everywhere., June 13, 2000

By 

courtney J angermeier - See all my reviews

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, August 5, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Port Tropique: A novel (Paperback)

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, March 8, 2010

By 

stoic (Mobile AL) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

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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.