The Price of Escape

February 14, 2011
A Jewish man flees 1938 Germany only to find a new and unexpected nightmare waiting for him in the sweltering heat of Guatemala in Unger's uneven latest (after Life in the Damn Tropics). WWI vet Samuel Berkow flees Hamburg, washes up in the Guatemalan port town of Puerto Barrios, and gets stuck there before he can make his way to the capital, where he'd intended to meet his cousin. Samuel is overwhelmed by the oddities of the local customs and by those who take advantage of foreigners. Unger's sharp prose deftly conveys Samuel's frustrations and confusions as he encounters characters like a troublesome dwarf, a volatile American fruit company manager, a crazed ex-priest, and a friendly telegraph operator who all offer help with one hand but uncertainty with the other. His departure repeatedly stymied, Samuel becomes increasingly desperate until he nonsensically commits a crime that both threatens to ruin him and sets the book on the path toward a disappointing denouement. But Unger does a great job with fish-out-of-water situations, as Samuel's travails—sometimes Kafkaesque, sometimes Laurel and Hardy—nicely pit his timidity against his growing desperation.

April 1, 2011
Even though the story takes place over just three days, we learn much about Samuel Berkows life. Hes a 37-year-old German Jew who fought for Germany in WWI, was wounded, and taken prisoner. His marriage ended in a few months, and it left him brokenhearted. Hes proper and diffident, and, although aware of the rising anti-Semitism in 1938, is reluctant to flee to Guatemala, as his uncle orders; his cousin Heinrich is in Guatemala, and as boys they were like brothers. Finally, he acquiesces to the trip, and the three days recount his arrival in the squalid port city of Puerto Barrios. He is befriended by Lewis, an American employee of the United Fruit Company who treats all Guatemalans as serfs and is prone to drunkenness and rage. Even the loutish Lewis warns him to leave Puerto Barrios immediately, and several natives offer the same ominous advice. But within hours of arrival, Samuel is uncharacteristically displaying his own rage. Evoking both Kafka and Conrad, Ungers character study of a broken man in a culture broken by a ravenous corporation makes compelling reading.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)