"Come on, cheer up, let us all be comedians together. Take one of my cigars, my scotch is good. Perhaps even Papa Doc is a comedian." - An Ambassador, the husband of Brown's mistress.

"Neither of us would ever die for love. We would grieve and separate and find another. We belonged to the world of comedy and not of tragedy." - Brown on his affair with the Ambassador's wife

"I found myself again in possession of money and in love with a woman, a coincidence no more unlikely than the encounter on the Atlantic between three people named Smith, Brown and Jones".

************

Smith, Brown and Jones board a cargo ship from New York to Haiti. Brown is a British hotel owner in Port-au-Prince, the narrator and cynical observer of events. Smith is a former American presidential candidate traveling with his wife. They are vegetarian, pacifist, civil rights activists. Jones claims to have been a major in the British military. Brown warns the Smith's and Jones of death squads, the Tontons Macoute, that Papa Doc Duvalier uses to terrorize Haiti.

Home again in Haiti, Brown resumes relationships put on hold when he fled to New York. They include Martha, the wife of a South American diplomat. Brown's life story is told from an out of wedlock birth to inheritance of a hotel from his mother. The Smith's come to stay with Brown but Jones is detained by the police. Philipot, a fugitive cabinet member hiding in Brown's home turns up dead. The Smith's in their American naivete can't grasp the danger around them.

Jones is freed, now posing as an arms dealer to Papa Doc's bogeyman militia. A nephew of Philipot plots to overthrow the regime. Brown's bartender Joseph was crippled by the police and joins the insurrection. Jones weapon sale swindle is uncovered and Brown helps him escape to fight against the American backed junta. Magiot, a doctor involved in the revolution, reflects that while Catholics and communists had created great crimes at least they did not stand idly aside.

When Brown was young he believed a Christian God was behind every tragedy. Nearing old age he came to believe a practical joker directed a comedy from above. The story takes place in the early 60's. Duvalier had consolidated power with US aid to fight communism, stealing most of the money. The setting was inspired by the Hotel Oloffson which Greene frequented in the late 50's. Characters walk off the pages of Greene's own life, embodying both comedy and tragedy.

I liked this book - an excellent evocation of Haiti in the 60's. probably considered more exotic when written than now

This short novel is not concerned with spiritual struggle as much of Greene's work. Instead the protagonist, Brown, faces the end of his life as a perpetual expatriot whose ideals, if he indeed ever had any, have been completely shattered by the takeover of Haiti by Papa Doc and the Tonton Macoute. Always lovely writing, with memorable descriptions of Haiti's landscape and climate, some very amusing people, and arresting passages about the nature of life, such as this one voiced by the true sage of the story, the Haitian doctor, Dr. Magiot: "Communism, my friend, is more than Marxism, just as Catholicism is more than the Roman Curia. There is a mystique as well as a politique. Catholics and communists have commited great crimes, but at least they have not stood aside, like an established society, and been indifferent. I would rather have blood on my hands than water like Pilate...if you have abandoned one faith, do not abandon all faith. There is always an alternative to the faith we lose. Or is it the same faith under another mask?"

I think I am giving it four stars because I would call it "slighter" than other Greenes I have read, but I loved and admire this book.

For Greene, this was epically long- nearly 300 pages? The heck? Unwonted length aside, though, it's standard Greene: foreign country, political machinations, darkness, weirdly sex-obsessed leading man and his illicit, tortured relationship with a married woman, naive Americans, cynical Englishmen and so forth.

It's also, sadly, slightly substandard Greene as far as structure. It's very flabby- there are, in effect, three storylines, which only interact insofar as the characters involved happen to know each other. There's no need at all for the naive American storyline (will Mr & Mrs Smith be able to set up a vegetarian center in Haiti?), which takes up a good fifth of the book; there's very little need for the narrator's back-story (how *did* he come to own a hotel in Haiti?), and the weight given to them early on detracts from the main event, Mr Jones' development from jail-bird to 'hero.' On the upside, it's nice to see the naive American's naivety as a source of strength and not just weakness, and the Englishman's cynicism may well be defeated by Dr. Magiot, who flits through the book only to have the final say. Without the Smith-vegetarian and Brown-family & lurv plot lines, this would have been excellent. As is, it's too flabby to recommend over Greene's masterpieces.