RollnSmoke Reviews: THE COMEDIANS by Graham Greene

THE COMEDIANS by Graham Greene (Penguin, 1967)

Graham Greene first traveled to Haiti in 1954 and immediately took to calling it “the nightmare republic” not just because of its terrible poverty and unforgiving landscape but because of the brain drain tyranny of Francois Duvalier – better known as “Pap Doc” – and his terrifying bogey man called the Totons Macoute who ruled from 1957-1971. It is against this ugly political backdrop that Greene places his central ex-pat characters who voyage together on the same incoming ship to the voodoo tropics. There’s Mr. and Mrs. Smith, the saintly and naive American idealists; Mr. Jones, an opportunistic British rogue with a shady background; and the central character, Mr. Brown, a solitary, faithless drifter who looks for love and clings to a dream for success as a hotelier. It is easy to get onboard Greene’s bedeviled adventure as the writing is easy and the plot is well-paced, if now a bit old-fashioned, with a compelling crescendo (9/10).