Port Tropique

(Paperback)

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Description

Revolution is simmering in the heat of the battered Central American town, Port Tropique. Hautned by his memories, ineffectual protagonist Franz Hall spends his days drinking and observing people at the zocalo and occasional nights involved in an ivory-smuggling operation threated by an impending government siege. In this sinuous narrative of dislocation and remorse, renowned novelist and screenwriter Barry Gifford details Franz's mundanity and the bizarre cast of characters around him.

Reviews

Gifford uses the charged story of an apprentice smuggler as an occasion for his own literary and cinematic smugglingfrom Conrad, Hemingway, Camus, John Hawkes, Howard Hawks, Welles and Ozu, among othersand to discover a new literary form. New York Times Book Review


A poet's nuanced prose runs throughPort Tropique a spellbinding story. Washington Post


A strange, disturbing intriguing impressionist painting of a book. San Francisco Chronicle

Author Bio

The author of more than forty works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, which have been translated into over twenty-five languages,BARRY GIFFORDwrites distinctly American stories for readers around the globe. From screenplays and librettos to his acclaimed Sailor and Lula novels, Giffords writing is as distinctive as it is difficult to classify. Born in the Seneca Hotel on Chicagos Near North Side, he relocated in his adolescence to New Orleans. The move proved significant: throughout his career, Giffords fictionpart-noir, part-picaresque, always entertainingis born of the clash between what he has referred to as his Northern Side and Southern Side. Gifford has been recipient of awards from PEN, the National Endowment for the Arts, the American Library Association, the Writers Guild of America and the Christopher Isherwood Foundation. His novelWild at Heartwas adapted into the 1990 Palme dOr-winning film of the same name. Gifford lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.