The White Man in the Tree and Other Stories [Deckle Edge] [Hardcover]

Mark Kurlansky (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 3, 2000

The award-winning author of the bestsellers Cod and The Basque History of the World makes his eagerly anticipated fiction debut -- with this funny and moving romp through the world's melting pot.

"The White Man in the Tree and other stories"

"The White Man in the Tree" is a comedy of cultural misunderstandings set in the Caribbean, New York, and Paris, a novella and eight stories about people who, because of their differences -- between men and women, blacks and whites, Caribbeans and visitors, Jews and Christians, rich and poor -- misjudge each other. As celebrated a nonfiction writer as he is, Mark Kurlansky was born to write fiction as well: he has an ability to unmask our foibles and write about love with wit and outright humor.

Whether it is a sophisticated European filmmaker, an ambitious young black Haitian woman, a promising politician obsessed with women's feet, or a fish-out-of-water rabbi in search of a kosher chicken in Curaao, each of Kurlansky's characters engages us with impulses and interactions that are by turns comic, insightful, and poignant. "The White Man in the Tree" is an affectionate portrait of a unique society, where Europe, America, Africa, and Asia meet Latin America. Filled with surprises and delight as Kurlansky approaches each scene from a new and unexpected angle, "The White Man in the Tree" is a tender, wholly original, and thoroughly entertaining fiction debut.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Kurlansky is best known for such quirky nonfiction surprise bestsellers as Cod and The Basque History of the World and here turns his hand for the first time to fictionAwhich won't make the same market splash as his earlier, offbeat offerings, but should produce some ripples. The author was for many years a newspaper correspondent in the Caribbean, and an intimate knowledge of the islands and their sometimes peculiar approaches to life and ways of doing things permeates these affectionate and often wryly amusing tales. The title story is a delicious fable about a Danish filmmaker who thinks he has found nirvana with a beautiful Haitian mistress, only to discover that her views of the possibilities of the relationship are profoundly different. "The Unclean" tells of efforts to produce kosher chickens for a Dutch West Indies island, and the confusions that result. "Naked" is a sweetly satirical account of the political bureaucracy at work in the wake of an island hurricane. "Beautiful Mayaguez Women," set in Puerto Rico, details some of the odder corners of labor relations and cross-dressing on the island. "Packets and Paperscraps" is a perceptive and poignant story of an island stud and his problems with the arrival of AIDS precautions. Only "Desparecidos," an unsettling tale of a journalist traveling around South America who discovers he has a doppelg?nger filing stories in his name, strikes a darker note. But this is basically a sunny collection, lithely written and full of Caribbean sunshine.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Readers familiar with Kurlansky's acclaimed nonfiction will appreciate the dexterity with which he moves into the fiction world. Kurlansky, a former Caribbean news correspondent, uses his considerable knowledge of the area and easily depicts its different nationalities, social classes, and races. In nine short stories and one novella, he offers a bounty of idiosyncratic characters with distinct perspectives on life. In Kurlansky's world, an aspiring politician's voyeurism avalanches into a foot fetish; the men of a small village turn to transvestitism in order to secure employment; and the burgeoning relationship between a Danish filmmaker and his Haitian girlfriend finds itself threatened by both her family and North American multiculturalism. What shines through in all of the stories is Kurlansky's abiding love for his characters. Although he tackles big topics, from the corporatization of Third World countries to the hypocrisy of the religiously devout, Kurlansky never fails to make his characters fully human and sympathetic. Brendan Dowling
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Washington Square Press; First Edition edition (October 3, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 067103605X
• ISBN-13: 978-0671036058
• Product Dimensions: 7.2 x 5.5 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,864,846 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Mark Kurlansky is a New York Times bestselling and James A. Beard Award-winning author. He is the recipient of a Bon Appétit American Food and Entertaining Award for Food Writer of the Year, and the Glenfiddich Food and Drink Award for Food Book of the year.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars (Caribbean) basin full of personalities, May 10, 2001

By 

"michaeleve" - See all my reviews

This review is from: The White Man in the Tree and Other Stories (Hardcover)

Truth is stranger than fiction. Not always. When penned by Mark Kurlansky both are equally extraordinary. Not satisfied with being a Caribbean reporter for the Chicago Tribune, he became a successful non-fiction writer (COD and THE BASQUE HISTORY OF THE WORLD). Now, with THE WHITE MAN IN THE TREE, it's fiction and very obvious that he is equally at ease in the imagination, and also very much at home in the Caribbean.

THE WHITE MAN IN A TREE is a novella and collection of other witty - sometimes wickedly so - short stories; all about life in the Caribbean, principally Haiti, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and French Guiana. What makes the book so enjoyable - besides Kurlansky's easy prose and comfort with the vernacular - is how he tackles the sociologically complex and serious issues that arise in such a potent admixture of people, places and cultures. Miscegnation is frought with portents of political correctness; rather than being shied away, Mr Kurlansky uses it as the theme to explore the misunderstandings and mistakes that are the common denominator of the humanly rich and diverse Caribbean.

For anyone who has lived in the area the tales will ring true. The complexity of motives and resulting eccentricity of behaviour that seems so weird to visitors is perfectly captured and explained, with a locals' shrug of the shoulders by Mr Kurlansky. Underlying all is the constant rhythm of the Caribbean sense of humor, which Mr Kurlansky has in abundance and with which he writes with abandon.

Misunderstandings and misjudgements aside, a sense of play is the one thing in common in the Caribbean; a necessary ingredient for living there and required of anybody who wishes to understand the region.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Sail Away With Kurlansky, March 7, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: The White Man in the Tree and Other Stories (Hardcover)

A friend gave me a copy of Mark Kurlansky's THE WHITE MAN IN THE TREE while I was planning a trip to the Caribbean. Get this book. It's guaranteed to double your travel pleasure wherever you go and whether or not you leave your armchair. You'll come away from Kurlansky's delicious romp knowing yourself and your world better. And that cast of characters! This book will remind you of Graham Greene. Kurlansky sees intently, like the visual artist he is, & forgets nothing, like the journalist he is. The combo makes for some wonderfully memorable writing.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Cultural Miscegenation in Paradise, February 23, 2001

By 

Gregory D. Curtis (Pittsburgh, PA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The White Man in the Tree and Other Stories (Hardcover)

Mark Kurlansky is the gifted author of several nonfiction books, including the extraordinary Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World, an eye-opening history of the Basques, and, if rumor serves, a forthcoming book on (forget it, you'll never guess) salt. It is therefore deeply unfair - appallingly unfair, really - to discover that he is a sensational, almost sui generic, writer of fiction. The White Man in the Tree, his first published fiction, is so nonfiction-like, so real in the deadpan, straight-ahead, choirboy-innocuous prose Kurlansky has invented, that it is only by conscientiously pinching ourselves every now and then that we can remember it is fiction he has turned his wicked hand to this time out, and not some mind-numbingly bizarre but nonetheless perfectly true story. Or stories. There are ten of them in White Man, each taking as its subject the comic, painful, surreal or just plain silly complications that arise from a form of cultural miscegenation as Euro-American cultures encounter the very different cultures of the Caribbean islands. Because these stories are simultaneously so real and so unreal, they make Kurlanksy's point about cultural and racial misapprehensions in a way that traditional fiction or nonfiction could never hope to achieve. They enlighten without preaching, amuse without humiliating, and establish a truth that is all the more profound and memorable for being just slightly too strange to be fully false.