The Price of Escape
by David Unger
This is a book in which two dissimilar worlds
collide: a monumental clash of cultures and desires that persists throughout
the book. It starts out with the first misfortune of Samuel Berkow, the main
character, whose last city of residence was Hamburg. Though he was a Jew, he
considered himself more German than anything. He belonged to the wealthy
merchant class and was accustomed to the comforts of life. After Kristallnacht,
there were many anti-Semitic incidents that led Samuel's uncle Jacob to insist,
and more importantly, finance Samuel's flight from Europe. His destination
would be Guatemala City, where his cousin Heinrich lived. It was supposed that
Heinrich would get Samuel on his feet. So Berkow sailed to Panama, and from
there to Puerto Barrios, Guatemala. You could say that Puerto Barrios is the
direct opposite of Hamburg in many ways: it is hot, dirty, smelly, backward,
desolate, desperate-and many other sad and rundown adjectives that could be
strung along with this sentence. Even compared to the rest of Guatemala, it is
an area in and of itself. In fact, it is really more a part of the Caribbean,
bordered by Belize to the north and Honduras to the south. It is home to many
Anglophone blacks or GarÃfuna, as they are called.
Though seemingly in the background, the United Fruit
Company, a US company notorious for taking over parts of Central America and
planting banana plantations, was very much a part of Puerto Barrios. In fact,
it was responsible for the town’s boom as well its bust. When the United Fruit
Company’s operations were headquartered in Puerto Barrios, it was in much
better shape, but when the company decided to move inland to Bananera, Puerto
Barrios was reduced to a mere port, and it suffered greatly. This gave locals
reason to be resentful toward the company and speak poorly of it and spread
rumors. There was even an American United Fruit Company employee, the colorful
Alfred “Alf” Lewis, who felt cheated because he was stationed in Puerto Barrios
when his true desire was to join the management and enjoy the status and salary
that he felt he deserved.
You can imagine that Samuel was utterly
unprepared for this entire ordeal. In fact, he was. He went through countless
tribulations before leaving Puerto Barrios, and in addition to this, having
been uprooted from his native Germany seems to have made him reminisce about
his melancholy past. Samuel spent many days and many nights trying to get out
of Puerto Barrios, and the author has a way of making it seem like he was there
for months, when in fact, his stay was much shorter.
I like this book because it was simple in
design, but always kept me on my toes. I was always asking myself “What is
Samuel going to do next?” “What terrible thing is going to befall him?” “Who is
going to either cross him or help him?” And perhaps the most compelling question
with an equally compelling but cryptic answer: When is Samuel going to leave
Puerto Barrios?
I didn’t find myself paging backward to find
out something that I had forgotten about the plot. Mr. Unger wrote coherent
content and has a style that flows naturally. It is interesting to note that
the author was born in Guatemala but raised from a young age in the United
States. I followed the writing style carefully to see if there was a hint of
Spanish in it, and the truth is that there is not. In fact, I find his grammar,
syntax and sentence length to be especially Anglo-Saxon in nature. However, the
backdrop is entirely Latin American, and some of the characters fit the bill as
well.
One last thing I came away with after reading
this book is that Puerto Barrios, like any city or town a person has lived in,
is an inner as well as an outer experience. Samuel’s version of or experience
in Puerto Barrios is much different than Alf’s or that of a visiting American artist
who had a great time on the bay. After reflecting on the matter, I really think
that Puerto Barrios was Samuel’s own personal hell that he transported from
Germany to Guatemala.
This book was written for adventure seekers.
Though it exceeds your garden-variety dime store novel by leaps and bounds, you
won’t have to invest too much of your attention span, which means that you can
focus on the adventure, excitement and despair. Furthermore, you can either
read it voraciously or during snatches of your free time (on the bus, in the
doctor’s office waiting room or before going to sleep).
To buy this book, click here.
To learn more about the author, click here.
