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Saint Jack
An American pimp in Singapore finds his life of pleasure turning against him in this comic novel by the acclaimed author of The Great Railway Bazaar.
Once a small-time American hustler, Jack Flowers found his calling when he jumped into the Straits of Malacca and hitched a ride to Singapore. Deftly identifying the fastest route to fame along the seedy port, Jack started hiring girls out to lonely tourists, sailors, bachelors--anyone with some loose change and a wandering eye. Some years later, he's running two pleasure palaces and something of a legend among those in the know.
But just as Jack is riding high, a shocking tumble toward the brink of death leaves him shaken, depressed and vulnerable. Desperate to pull himself back up, he's quick to do business with Edwin Shuck, a powerful American working to take down an unsuspecting general. Marked with Paul Theroux's trademark biting humor, Saint Jack is an audacious tale of sex, faith, guilt, innocence, middle-age, and the meaning of it all.
Once a small-time American hustler, Jack Flowers found his calling when he jumped into the Straits of Malacca and hitched a ride to Singapore. Deftly identifying the fastest route to fame along the seedy port, Jack started hiring girls out to lonely tourists, sailors, bachelors--anyone with some loose change and a wandering eye. Some years later, he's running two pleasure palaces and something of a legend among those in the know.
But just as Jack is riding high, a shocking tumble toward the brink of death leaves him shaken, depressed and vulnerable. Desperate to pull himself back up, he's quick to do business with Edwin Shuck, a powerful American working to take down an unsuspecting general. Marked with Paul Theroux's trademark biting humor, Saint Jack is an audacious tale of sex, faith, guilt, innocence, middle-age, and the meaning of it all.
259 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1973
83 people are currently reading
572 people want to read
About the author
Paul Theroux
237 books2,605 followersPaul Edward Theroux is an American travel writer and novelist, whose best known work is The Great Railway Bazaar (1975), a travelogue about a trip he made by train from Great Britain through Western and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, through South Asia, then South-East Asia, up through East Asia, as far east as Japan, and then back across Russia to his point of origin. Although perhaps best known as a travelogue writer, Theroux has also published numerous works of fiction, some of which were made into feature films. He was awarded the 1981 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for his novel The Mosquito Coast.
He is the father of Marcel and Louis Theroux, and the brother of Alexander and Peter. Justin Theroux is his nephew.
He is the father of Marcel and Louis Theroux, and the brother of Alexander and Peter. Justin Theroux is his nephew.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 79 reviews
September 7, 2020
”In previous years the same fellers would have wanted to visit a Chinese massage parlor; now they wanted to see me. The motive had not changed: just for the experience. And evidently stories circulated about me on the tourist grapevine: I had been deported from the States; I was a pederast; I was a top-level spy, a hunted man, a rubber planter, an informer, a nutcase. The fellers guilelessly confided this gossip and promised they wouldn’t tell a soul. And one feller said he had looked me up because ‘Let’s face it, Flowers, you’re an institution.’”
The truth about Jack Flowers is a nebulous thing, an undulating black monster that changes shape with each old story that circulates with an imaginative twist and gets larger, less distinct, with each new tale that gets conceived on a gin-soaked evening with only a kernel of truth at the center. He is a legend, capable of anything.
It wasn’t supposed to end this way. When he left the States, one step ahead of law enforcement, he didn’t look at his face reflected in the churning waters of the Pacific and see himself becoming the freak show of Singapore. A must-see attraction that would have tourists looking for him in every dive bar and bordello in the city. When he landed in Singapore, he was an entrepreneur. He worked by day as a ship’s chandler, which put him in touch with the sailors who would be looking for entertainment in the evening. The type of entertainment that Jack could oblige them with. He did well. Too well. So well that the local gangsters decided that he needed to be taught a lesson.
Sure, they burned his whorehouse down. Sure, they beat him up. That is to be expected. Scarring him with mottled tattoos...now that is creative, demented behavior that even a worldly guy like Jack couldn’t have anticipated. ”’Curse of Dogshit,’ said Mr. Tan, translating in the Bandung the next day. He read my left arm. ‘Beware Devil, Whore’s Boy, Mouth Full of Lies, Remove This and Die.’ Very Nasty,’ said Mr. Tan.” They wrote a small novella on Jack’s arms, but you get the drift. Besides being nasty, slanderous epitaphs regarding Jack’s life, they are not even well done. He is the QueeQueg of Singapore.
”Flowers...are you a ponce?” says one prospective client whom Jack is trying to help navigate the seedy underworld of Singapore. Jack doesn’t answer questions like that. He allows the tourists to write his story. The image they want is the heroic gangster who is good and bad in equal measure. That isn’t how Jack wants to be remembered. ”The one I liked showed me in my linen suit, having my late-afternoon gin, alone in a wicker chair under a traveler’s palm, with a cigar in my mouth; I was haloed in gold and green and dusty beams of sunlight slanted through the hedge.” That sounds like a picture of a successful businessman at ease with his money and position in life, not the crusty, mildly immoral picture of him that the tourists treasure. He is trapped into a personality he would have rather never been.
Like most people, he has a carefully guarded vision in his mind of the perfect funkhole. The place that would reflect his success and give him comfort into old age. It is such an elusive dream that to share it would diminish it. After all, that dream is so fragile one crass word could shatter it.
As I go back through and read some of the early Paul Theroux novels, I am impressed with his range of subject matters. He really was exploring all avenues of the fiction genre, and each of his books so far have proven to be very different from one another, but all showing a particular Theroux style of approach and conception. His fiction masterpiece is probably The Mosquito Coast, and he will probably always be best known for his grumpy, acerbic travel books, but to ignore him as a novelist would be a mistake.
Peter Bogdanovich made a movie of this book in 1979 starring Ben Gazzara. I have not seen it, but I have a copy on the way. Reviews are mixed, but it sounds to me like a movie that is misunderstood and might be rather interesting for a connoisseur of bad/good films, such as myself. Wikipedia adds a somewhat cryptic, but interesting, story about the film rights. ”Cybill Shepherd sued Playboy magazine after they published photos of her from The Last Picture Show. As part of the settlement, she got the rights to the novel Saint Jack, which she had wanted to make into a film ever since Orson Welles gave her a copy.” How the rights to Saint Jack were somehow a bargaining chip on the table between Playboy and Cybill Shepherd is somewhat of a mystery, but I assume that Playboy had bought the film rights to the novel from Theroux. If I were Theroux, I’d be thinking to myself...Orson Welles read my novel!!!
If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com
I also have a Facebook blogger page at:https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten and an Instagram account https://www.instagram.com/jeffreykeeten/
The truth about Jack Flowers is a nebulous thing, an undulating black monster that changes shape with each old story that circulates with an imaginative twist and gets larger, less distinct, with each new tale that gets conceived on a gin-soaked evening with only a kernel of truth at the center. He is a legend, capable of anything.
It wasn’t supposed to end this way. When he left the States, one step ahead of law enforcement, he didn’t look at his face reflected in the churning waters of the Pacific and see himself becoming the freak show of Singapore. A must-see attraction that would have tourists looking for him in every dive bar and bordello in the city. When he landed in Singapore, he was an entrepreneur. He worked by day as a ship’s chandler, which put him in touch with the sailors who would be looking for entertainment in the evening. The type of entertainment that Jack could oblige them with. He did well. Too well. So well that the local gangsters decided that he needed to be taught a lesson.
Sure, they burned his whorehouse down. Sure, they beat him up. That is to be expected. Scarring him with mottled tattoos...now that is creative, demented behavior that even a worldly guy like Jack couldn’t have anticipated. ”’Curse of Dogshit,’ said Mr. Tan, translating in the Bandung the next day. He read my left arm. ‘Beware Devil, Whore’s Boy, Mouth Full of Lies, Remove This and Die.’ Very Nasty,’ said Mr. Tan.” They wrote a small novella on Jack’s arms, but you get the drift. Besides being nasty, slanderous epitaphs regarding Jack’s life, they are not even well done. He is the QueeQueg of Singapore.
”Flowers...are you a ponce?” says one prospective client whom Jack is trying to help navigate the seedy underworld of Singapore. Jack doesn’t answer questions like that. He allows the tourists to write his story. The image they want is the heroic gangster who is good and bad in equal measure. That isn’t how Jack wants to be remembered. ”The one I liked showed me in my linen suit, having my late-afternoon gin, alone in a wicker chair under a traveler’s palm, with a cigar in my mouth; I was haloed in gold and green and dusty beams of sunlight slanted through the hedge.” That sounds like a picture of a successful businessman at ease with his money and position in life, not the crusty, mildly immoral picture of him that the tourists treasure. He is trapped into a personality he would have rather never been.
Like most people, he has a carefully guarded vision in his mind of the perfect funkhole. The place that would reflect his success and give him comfort into old age. It is such an elusive dream that to share it would diminish it. After all, that dream is so fragile one crass word could shatter it.
As I go back through and read some of the early Paul Theroux novels, I am impressed with his range of subject matters. He really was exploring all avenues of the fiction genre, and each of his books so far have proven to be very different from one another, but all showing a particular Theroux style of approach and conception. His fiction masterpiece is probably The Mosquito Coast, and he will probably always be best known for his grumpy, acerbic travel books, but to ignore him as a novelist would be a mistake.
Peter Bogdanovich made a movie of this book in 1979 starring Ben Gazzara. I have not seen it, but I have a copy on the way. Reviews are mixed, but it sounds to me like a movie that is misunderstood and might be rather interesting for a connoisseur of bad/good films, such as myself. Wikipedia adds a somewhat cryptic, but interesting, story about the film rights. ”Cybill Shepherd sued Playboy magazine after they published photos of her from The Last Picture Show. As part of the settlement, she got the rights to the novel Saint Jack, which she had wanted to make into a film ever since Orson Welles gave her a copy.” How the rights to Saint Jack were somehow a bargaining chip on the table between Playboy and Cybill Shepherd is somewhat of a mystery, but I assume that Playboy had bought the film rights to the novel from Theroux. If I were Theroux, I’d be thinking to myself...Orson Welles read my novel!!!
If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com
I also have a Facebook blogger page at:https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten and an Instagram account https://www.instagram.com/jeffreykeeten/
May 18, 2020
A couple of years ago, I visited Thailand with my wife. We covered Pattaya and Bangkok. I was enamored by the freedom, the alcohol and of course the beautiful women with placards that read "I am for rent". Bars that were open till 2 am. The piano player at our hotel who would smile happily when we passed by. The pleasant and disciplined people who were in charge of taking us around and were mildly annoyed by the inefficiency and dysfunction of Indian tourists. The separate cruises for white people and South-East Asians. It was a place which a regular guy like me fantasizes about belonging to but can only enjoy vicariously through books and movies. Paul Theroux's Saint Jack is not set in Thailand. It is set in a similar milieu in Singapore. But not in the places where planned packaged tours that me and my wife went on, would take you to. It is about places and people that tourists who go on packaged tours wish they could go to and meet.
Jack Flowers, an American, who comes to Singapore as a ship chandler and then becomes a pimp is the first person narrator of Saint Jack. The narrator is like one out of a Graham Greene novel without any of the Catholic guilt. Jack Flower's voice is one that is characterized by street smartness, melancholy, nostalgia and fear of ageing. The book sort of begins medias res, with Jack in his early fifties. He hangs out all day in bars with fans and rattan chairs, hustling men and women. But when the local gangsters move in on his brothel, Jack has to find other more disrespectful ways to make ends meet - providing entertainment to American soldiers from Vietnam and spying on an American general and maybe gather stuff on him. So there are times when he wishes for the square life too - he hopes that some rich uncle would bestow him with a fortune. He wishes that he is rich enough to stay at days on end and not leave the room of one of the posh hotels. It is a book filled with wisdom endowing reminiscences, sharp observations worthy of Theroux's mentor V.S.Naipaul, cruel bar room banter and jokes that a lot of Hollywood writers would not mind stealing.
Jack Flowers is one terrific character. It is no surprise that Peter Bogdanovich, Roger Corman and Ben Gazzara made a film based on it. The film is a lost gem of the 70s. Both the book and the film are strongly recommended.
Jack Flowers, an American, who comes to Singapore as a ship chandler and then becomes a pimp is the first person narrator of Saint Jack. The narrator is like one out of a Graham Greene novel without any of the Catholic guilt. Jack Flower's voice is one that is characterized by street smartness, melancholy, nostalgia and fear of ageing. The book sort of begins medias res, with Jack in his early fifties. He hangs out all day in bars with fans and rattan chairs, hustling men and women. But when the local gangsters move in on his brothel, Jack has to find other more disrespectful ways to make ends meet - providing entertainment to American soldiers from Vietnam and spying on an American general and maybe gather stuff on him. So there are times when he wishes for the square life too - he hopes that some rich uncle would bestow him with a fortune. He wishes that he is rich enough to stay at days on end and not leave the room of one of the posh hotels. It is a book filled with wisdom endowing reminiscences, sharp observations worthy of Theroux's mentor V.S.Naipaul, cruel bar room banter and jokes that a lot of Hollywood writers would not mind stealing.
Jack Flowers is one terrific character. It is no surprise that Peter Bogdanovich, Roger Corman and Ben Gazzara made a film based on it. The film is a lost gem of the 70s. Both the book and the film are strongly recommended.
November 5, 2017
Aging hustler handles hussies, halts at harm
When Paul Theroux was young, before he REALLY soured on the world, he wrote some brilliant, pleasantly-comical novels and stories. This is one of them, the tale of an American pimp in Singapore, whose cover is to be a ship chandling agent for a local Chinese boss, but whose main occupation concerns girls, boys, sex shows, blue movies, and whatever else his varied foreign clients may desire. Hard drinking with leftover colonial Brits, keeping his "girls" happy, guiding sailors, tourists, and ever-so-many club members to their favorite sins---this is Jack Flowers' life. His biography unfolds amidst tales of escapades, but takes a different turn when an Englishman of his age suddenly expires in a bar toilet. Jack may be a pimp, but he's rather philosophical and, unlike his girls, has a heart of gold. He caters to anyone's whim, gets caught up in CIA shenanigans, and runs into more than a little opposition from local crims. He definitely rises only to fall. To find out what that involves, you ought to read this book by an Updike-style writer, who in my humble opinion, was best in his early days when his way with words and brilliant descriptive powers were unsullied by later over-pessimism.
When Paul Theroux was young, before he REALLY soured on the world, he wrote some brilliant, pleasantly-comical novels and stories. This is one of them, the tale of an American pimp in Singapore, whose cover is to be a ship chandling agent for a local Chinese boss, but whose main occupation concerns girls, boys, sex shows, blue movies, and whatever else his varied foreign clients may desire. Hard drinking with leftover colonial Brits, keeping his "girls" happy, guiding sailors, tourists, and ever-so-many club members to their favorite sins---this is Jack Flowers' life. His biography unfolds amidst tales of escapades, but takes a different turn when an Englishman of his age suddenly expires in a bar toilet. Jack may be a pimp, but he's rather philosophical and, unlike his girls, has a heart of gold. He caters to anyone's whim, gets caught up in CIA shenanigans, and runs into more than a little opposition from local crims. He definitely rises only to fall. To find out what that involves, you ought to read this book by an Updike-style writer, who in my humble opinion, was best in his early days when his way with words and brilliant descriptive powers were unsullied by later over-pessimism.
December 28, 2025
Man, did this bring back memories…
Long before he became "the train guy," Paul Theroux was a novelist, writing books about messed-up Americans abroad like The Jungle Lovers, The Mosquito Coast and Saint Jack. And while I don't have first-hand experience in — and so can't really comment on — Africa or Central America, I can say that his take on Singapore and its expat community in the early '70s is spot on.
Other than a couple months touring Southeast Asia playing guitar for a Taiwanese pop star in 1980, pretty much all of my experience from 1978-1993 was in Taipei, but at least in those early days it was much the same as the Singapore described here. I knew Jack Flowers; I knew a dozen Jack Flowers' —guys who'd stayed on after Vietnam or even Korea; a mix of burned-out combat vets and (at least initially) optimistic entrepreneurial types who either started their own business or ended up working for some local company as the in-house gweilo, making enough to survive on the local economy but rarely enough to ever let them move —much less retire —back home, and spending way-too-many evenings in Taipei's equivalents of Flowers' "Bandung" bar, (faux-Western places like "The Ploughman's Pub" and "The Hope & Anchor" —better known as "The Hopeless Wanker").
As to Singapore itself, a later career did take me back there from 2013-15, when it was a TOTALLY different place from the one Theroux describes here. But I did have a month there in 1980 — playing two shows a night (see photo below) but with my days totally free — just seven years after Jack was published, and so that is the fondly-remembered Singapore of my misspent youth: back when the big tourist attractions were the totally WTF? "Tiger Balm Gardens" (look it up), the "XX Days Without an Accident" crocodile farm, and the transvestite charms of Bugis Street (which in my innocence, I long thought was "Boogie Street"); back when the War Memorial really was on "the very edge of the island" (as Jack notes on the last page of the book), decades before the government reclaimed all that land and built the God-awful "Marina Bay Sands" casino resort, so that the famous Merlion now looks out across a paltry tourist lagoon instead of the endless entirety of the Singapore Straits…
Anyway…a 4-star story but a 10-star trip down memory lane, so a really good time, at least for me. BTW, you can also watch the entire Ben Gazzara film version here on Youtube, filmed entirely in Singapore in 1978 and so almost exactly the city I remember: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fxbfz...
("Look, mom, I made the paper!" — that's me in jeans, not exactly rockin' out in Chinatown, lol)
___________________________
Huh...and so reading through my old Taiwan diaries recently with my wife, it looks like I actually read this back in 1979, although didn't remember it AT ALL when I read it (again, apparently) a year of so ago. Huh.
Long before he became "the train guy," Paul Theroux was a novelist, writing books about messed-up Americans abroad like The Jungle Lovers, The Mosquito Coast and Saint Jack. And while I don't have first-hand experience in — and so can't really comment on — Africa or Central America, I can say that his take on Singapore and its expat community in the early '70s is spot on.
Other than a couple months touring Southeast Asia playing guitar for a Taiwanese pop star in 1980, pretty much all of my experience from 1978-1993 was in Taipei, but at least in those early days it was much the same as the Singapore described here. I knew Jack Flowers; I knew a dozen Jack Flowers' —guys who'd stayed on after Vietnam or even Korea; a mix of burned-out combat vets and (at least initially) optimistic entrepreneurial types who either started their own business or ended up working for some local company as the in-house gweilo, making enough to survive on the local economy but rarely enough to ever let them move —much less retire —back home, and spending way-too-many evenings in Taipei's equivalents of Flowers' "Bandung" bar, (faux-Western places like "The Ploughman's Pub" and "The Hope & Anchor" —better known as "The Hopeless Wanker").
As to Singapore itself, a later career did take me back there from 2013-15, when it was a TOTALLY different place from the one Theroux describes here. But I did have a month there in 1980 — playing two shows a night (see photo below) but with my days totally free — just seven years after Jack was published, and so that is the fondly-remembered Singapore of my misspent youth: back when the big tourist attractions were the totally WTF? "Tiger Balm Gardens" (look it up), the "XX Days Without an Accident" crocodile farm, and the transvestite charms of Bugis Street (which in my innocence, I long thought was "Boogie Street"); back when the War Memorial really was on "the very edge of the island" (as Jack notes on the last page of the book), decades before the government reclaimed all that land and built the God-awful "Marina Bay Sands" casino resort, so that the famous Merlion now looks out across a paltry tourist lagoon instead of the endless entirety of the Singapore Straits…
Anyway…a 4-star story but a 10-star trip down memory lane, so a really good time, at least for me. BTW, you can also watch the entire Ben Gazzara film version here on Youtube, filmed entirely in Singapore in 1978 and so almost exactly the city I remember: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fxbfz...
("Look, mom, I made the paper!" — that's me in jeans, not exactly rockin' out in Chinatown, lol)
___________________________
Huh...and so reading through my old Taiwan diaries recently with my wife, it looks like I actually read this back in 1979, although didn't remember it AT ALL when I read it (again, apparently) a year of so ago. Huh.
June 30, 2020
Tengo dos cosas pendientes desde hace mucho tiempo. La primera es que tengo unas ganas locas de conocer Singapur, probablemente porque lo asocio con un lugar que es lo suficientemente exótico y con la suficiente pátina de occidentalidad para no ser un shock y además porque es cosmopolita y fancy. La otra es que tengo como cinco libros de Paul Theroux y éste es el último que compré y el primero que he leído.
Tengo mentalmente esa admiración por los escritores de viajes. Chatwin, Leigh Fermor y el propio Theroux me parecen el tipo de persona que podría anunciar cerveza como "el hombre más interesante del mundo" y pese a que cosas de su edad puede que no sobrevivan muy bien, en general proyectan esa aura de conocedores y aventureros. Theroux en particular me llama la atención por los temas de su ficción y sus historias de gente desesperada atrapada en lugares remotos que le son entre ajenos y extrañamente familiares. Esta vez toca el turno de Singapur.
Pero éste es otro Singapur. Un Singapur antes de Locos, Ricos y Asiáticos; antes de los azotes por grafittear y las multas por tirar chicle; antes de los Instagramazos en la fuente del Merlión; antes del mejor aeropuerto del mundo con todo y su catarata artificial en el interior; antes de los Gardens by the Bay; antes del postureo en el Marina Bay Sands y su alberca infinita que dicen por ahí que es muy fría. Como práticamente todos los lugares que han sido sanitizados y hechos turísticos por la cultura contemporánea, el pasado del lugar es mucho más sórdido. Y Theroux lo captura con un ojo clínico que logra ser mordaz y ser anhelante. Un puerto importante húmedo y caluroso, lleno de tipos que envejecen sin querer ni saber moverse a otro lado, esperando por algo diferente. Una ciudad estado que apenas despegaba y donde todos son inmigrantes y se llevan los atavismos de sus propias culturas.
Y el protagonista, un hombre que musita sobre la mediana edad y que guarda sueños tristes y que se ve obligado a confrontarlos de una forma sorpresiva, es una delicia. Y a la vez algo de tristeza. Theroux logra poner en la mesa una historia balanceada y que reparte por todos lados y que pinta una escena en el tiempo en un lugar que ya no existe más. Tengo que adelantar mi lectura de La Costa de los Mosquitos que es un libro que llevo años pateando en mi TBR.
Tengo mentalmente esa admiración por los escritores de viajes. Chatwin, Leigh Fermor y el propio Theroux me parecen el tipo de persona que podría anunciar cerveza como "el hombre más interesante del mundo" y pese a que cosas de su edad puede que no sobrevivan muy bien, en general proyectan esa aura de conocedores y aventureros. Theroux en particular me llama la atención por los temas de su ficción y sus historias de gente desesperada atrapada en lugares remotos que le son entre ajenos y extrañamente familiares. Esta vez toca el turno de Singapur.
Pero éste es otro Singapur. Un Singapur antes de Locos, Ricos y Asiáticos; antes de los azotes por grafittear y las multas por tirar chicle; antes de los Instagramazos en la fuente del Merlión; antes del mejor aeropuerto del mundo con todo y su catarata artificial en el interior; antes de los Gardens by the Bay; antes del postureo en el Marina Bay Sands y su alberca infinita que dicen por ahí que es muy fría. Como práticamente todos los lugares que han sido sanitizados y hechos turísticos por la cultura contemporánea, el pasado del lugar es mucho más sórdido. Y Theroux lo captura con un ojo clínico que logra ser mordaz y ser anhelante. Un puerto importante húmedo y caluroso, lleno de tipos que envejecen sin querer ni saber moverse a otro lado, esperando por algo diferente. Una ciudad estado que apenas despegaba y donde todos son inmigrantes y se llevan los atavismos de sus propias culturas.
Y el protagonista, un hombre que musita sobre la mediana edad y que guarda sueños tristes y que se ve obligado a confrontarlos de una forma sorpresiva, es una delicia. Y a la vez algo de tristeza. Theroux logra poner en la mesa una historia balanceada y que reparte por todos lados y que pinta una escena en el tiempo en un lugar que ya no existe más. Tengo que adelantar mi lectura de La Costa de los Mosquitos que es un libro que llevo años pateando en mi TBR.
July 19, 2020
This is a poignant reflection of a middle-aged, expat pimp, "Saint" Jack Flowers.
He reflects on his victories and losses as he scrambles to try and make a nest egg for himself in Singapore from the late 50's through the mid 70's. He knows he's on the downside of the slope and that hopes for material success (or simple financial security) are slipping through his grasp.
This is a very unique character, as he's virtuous in his own way - a pimp with a heart of gold - and while he can't make the money he wants, he won't compromise his principles, which are ultimately, decent.
Theroux does an excellent job evoking the sights, smells, sounds and feels of Southeast Asia. Saint Jack is a unique character and Theroux creates some unforgettable scenes, moments, and images in this novel. Vietnam was still happening when this novel was written, and Theroux provides some commentary on the American role in that conflict.
Highly recommended if you've been to East Asia, or have dreamt about doing so. The Peter Bogdanovich film does the novel credit with some interesting differences. It's hard to say which is better. Ben Gazzarra is the perfect Jack Flowers.
He reflects on his victories and losses as he scrambles to try and make a nest egg for himself in Singapore from the late 50's through the mid 70's. He knows he's on the downside of the slope and that hopes for material success (or simple financial security) are slipping through his grasp.
This is a very unique character, as he's virtuous in his own way - a pimp with a heart of gold - and while he can't make the money he wants, he won't compromise his principles, which are ultimately, decent.
Theroux does an excellent job evoking the sights, smells, sounds and feels of Southeast Asia. Saint Jack is a unique character and Theroux creates some unforgettable scenes, moments, and images in this novel. Vietnam was still happening when this novel was written, and Theroux provides some commentary on the American role in that conflict.
Highly recommended if you've been to East Asia, or have dreamt about doing so. The Peter Bogdanovich film does the novel credit with some interesting differences. It's hard to say which is better. Ben Gazzarra is the perfect Jack Flowers.
February 4, 2017
Perhaps one of funniest first-person literary unravelings on middle-age. There's a rich yet subversive sadness that permeates this novel, episodes cloaked with wise-assed recollections and somber gratitudes. Saint Jack is such a great character, his cloth cut from Woody Allen interpreting Graham Greene, a purveyor pretending to be a pimp, as loud a player as his wide collared tropical shirt and dime-store cigar. Paul Theroux is on fire here. His writing is top shelf, flowing with a rare sense of empathy to all his characters--whether a corrupt senator, a suicidal G.I., or a prostitute past her prime. Books like this don't get written much anymore. The world's too connected and aware of itself. A tender, bawdy novel, actually, quite lovely.
On growing older:
"His body alarms him; it starts playing tricks on him, his teeth warn him, his stomach scolds him, he's balding at last; a pimple might be cancer, indigestion a heart attack...his friends all resemble him, so there can be no hope of rescue."
On fortune:
"Fortune might be denied me, but that denial still held a promise like postponement."
On growing older:
"His body alarms him; it starts playing tricks on him, his teeth warn him, his stomach scolds him, he's balding at last; a pimple might be cancer, indigestion a heart attack...his friends all resemble him, so there can be no hope of rescue."
On fortune:
"Fortune might be denied me, but that denial still held a promise like postponement."
January 1, 2011
Largely forgettable tale of ex-pat community as seen through the always jaded eyes of Mr Theroux.
April 27, 2020
Like Jack Flowers, Singapore has a less salubrious past. The modern image of Singapore is an excruciatingly clean, wealthy and law abiding city, where chewing gum is illegal and taxi drivers refuse tips. But it wasn't always this way.
Saint Jack is a thorough exploration of a very complex character. What is it that makes him act the way he does? Is it the circumstances, the vice filled city, the accident of chance, the desperate loneliness of a foreigner in a city with no hope of ever returning home?
Is he a sinner or saint? Can you be good when fate has left you reliant on being bad? If he is a saint, whose patron would he be? The whores he pimps out or the lost souls he gathers up off the humid streets of Singapore to grant their every wish?
Saint Jack is a thorough exploration of a very complex character. What is it that makes him act the way he does? Is it the circumstances, the vice filled city, the accident of chance, the desperate loneliness of a foreigner in a city with no hope of ever returning home?
Is he a sinner or saint? Can you be good when fate has left you reliant on being bad? If he is a saint, whose patron would he be? The whores he pimps out or the lost souls he gathers up off the humid streets of Singapore to grant their every wish?
December 30, 2011
I was a little nervous reading one of the few books my husband owns that he hasn't read (why hasn't he read it? maybe he did read it and it wasn't good so he forgot it.), but this was actually pretty good. Some of the bits on aging got a little depressing, but I suppose that just means they're convincing.
February 21, 2012
Loved this book--love Theroux's oeuvre of novels set in exotic locals, always sexy, always juicy and absorbing. I don't remember whether I read St. Jack or Half Moon Street first--inspired by the movies, it's true. Perfect for times you really need to hit the road and go someplace hot and sweaty and have a sexy adventure but are too broke to travel.
December 23, 2019
A quite enjoyable, captivating read, especially since I spent nearly 40 years around SE Asia as a seaman from the age of 17.
Many of the places mentioned in the book were quite familiar to me in my younger days.
The book brought back memories, good and bad, mostly good though..
Many of the places mentioned in the book were quite familiar to me in my younger days.
The book brought back memories, good and bad, mostly good though..
November 20, 2019
(I'm behind on my Goodreads reviews. I finished this book a few months ago, so this review is a little thin; I'm probably closer to 3.5 stars than 4.)
I have a mixed personal (and sentimental) reading relationship with Paul Theroux. The first time I ever got paid as a writer was for a book review of Theroux's novel "O-Zone." I met him in a small group setting in the late 80s or early 90s. The only thing I remember is that he deflected questions about the film adaptations of his books, and said that his favorite movie was, "This is Spinal Tap." (He gets points in my book for that.)
Anyway, Saint Jack is his first novel (1973) -- and it was made into a memorable film. It's about a roguish pimp in Singapore with a heart of gold. Jack Flowers is appealing because he is not a typical ugly American -- and he is a class underdog. On the other hand, he exploits women, and the book arguably soft pedals that exploitation. Jack is redeemably self-aware, but only to a point. Theroux writes evocatively and the story moves along. The books seems to capture a time and place, a zeitgeist, but in so doing, it is also just a bit dated. Ultimately, I guess I was entertained but felt a little guilty for it.
I have a mixed personal (and sentimental) reading relationship with Paul Theroux. The first time I ever got paid as a writer was for a book review of Theroux's novel "O-Zone." I met him in a small group setting in the late 80s or early 90s. The only thing I remember is that he deflected questions about the film adaptations of his books, and said that his favorite movie was, "This is Spinal Tap." (He gets points in my book for that.)
Anyway, Saint Jack is his first novel (1973) -- and it was made into a memorable film. It's about a roguish pimp in Singapore with a heart of gold. Jack Flowers is appealing because he is not a typical ugly American -- and he is a class underdog. On the other hand, he exploits women, and the book arguably soft pedals that exploitation. Jack is redeemably self-aware, but only to a point. Theroux writes evocatively and the story moves along. The books seems to capture a time and place, a zeitgeist, but in so doing, it is also just a bit dated. Ultimately, I guess I was entertained but felt a little guilty for it.
July 24, 2019
Not sure whether to give this three or four stars. I liked it, but was not excited by it. It gave an interesting little snapshot of a Singapore life in the 1950/60s. The writing style was unusual, almost like sitting listening to this guy talking in the pub, with his repetitions and diversions and informality. But I enjoyed the reflections on life - the shortness and unexpectedness of it, what gives it meaning, and honour. I am told this book was banned in Singapore when it first came out in the 70s. I'm not sure why - maybe it gave an alternative, 'contradictory' voice to the official policies on the vice trade at the time. Nowadays, unbanned, it has historical interest. Anyway, I've been intending to read this for several years and am happy finally to have done so. :-)
July 31, 2011
Told in three parts (present - flashback - present), this is the story of a 'feller' (the main character's incessant use of this term is incredibly irritating after a time) abroad in Singapore in the 50s and 60s. The novel is almost classically structured, designed to explain how the main character gets to where he is, and why he makes the choice he makes in the novel's closing pages. In terms of plot and structure, the work is exceedingly well-crafted. At times, at the level of the sentence, there are languors not entirely accounted for by the first-person narration. Still, an entertaining and occasionally humorous read.
September 18, 2008
This is the truly cool cucumber we all want to be, a guy who can stand his ground when the heat is on. Jack is a survivor, but with heart, and if the only way he can make the world a little better is to NOT make it worse, then that's what he will do. One can find art even in dirty Asian brothels and shitty little shipping offices if one looks closely enough. (Also, check out that gritty, uncomfortable, beautiful movie version out there by Bogdonavich and Gazarra. It's an acquired taste, but worth it.)
January 17, 2015
The story of a pimp, procurer, fast talking John is told with the awareness of a man analyzing his life at middle age and wondering why he is old. Told as a memoir, he reflects with little regret and tells his story with open honesty. Theroux prose is fluid and descriptive, making Jack, the main character likeable and his decisions believable. World events influence his enterprises as he reacts to the Korean Ear, the Vietnam war.
July 19, 2018
Though I'm not a Theroux fan, this one was one of his best because "Saint Jack" is a very believable idiot. But like most Theroux novels it seems touristy in that its characters each fulfill the most cliche stereotypes - the British act like colonial nimrods, the Singaporeans are elitist and obsessed with money, the women from the mainland are struggling model-esque heart-of-gold types. Don't take the novel too seriously--read it as campy, and you'll enjoy it.
October 27, 2014
I picked it up solely because it's set in Singapore. Not really my kind of story. I got bored by the first few chapters, and nothing seemed to be happening apart from the ramblings and boring times of a middle-aged ang moh. I didn't finish it. I hear there's a movie. Maybe I'll give that a try.
April 27, 2019
Theroux’s pungent Singapore-set novel carries echoes of “The Quiet American,” which I plan to reread shortly.
November 18, 2018
Rereading Saint Jack after 40 years, I wondered what Jack Flowers would think about today’s Singapore. Clearly, he would despise the single-party island state for its strict Confucian / hyper-Catholic moralism and repressive regulations, although he might dig it for the innumerable opportunities to make oodles of money.
Flowers was a colorful character out of Boston who washed up in Singapore, much like Paul Theroux, who lectured at a university there in 1968. The author first introduces Flowers as an untrustworthy narrator of his own tawdry Conradian tale. At 53, after years at sea and 14 years in Singapore, Flowers is no longer a Devil-may-care American college dropout. He’s as dispassionate about his day job as an odd-jobber in a Chinese ship chandlery, as he is about his sideline, conscientiously providing Chinese and Malay girls for sailors and married men. Despite a well-earned reputation for provisioning ships and hotels with local women, he doesn’t think of himself as a pimp, merely as A Useful Man, with a reputation for having “a finger in every tart.”
Flowers fawns over his johns like a sycophant, unable to speak his own mind. Dining with one of his customers, he reluctantly passes up the seafood he craves because the customer suggests the food isn’t up to par. Flowers is wilting but not without hope, composing over and over in his mind letters congratulating him on winning a fortune in a hoped-for future.
Into his dispirited life comes a cool-eyed English auditor named William Leigh, who casts shadows like a funeral shroud over Flowers’ purposeful life as a part-time ponce. When Leigh’s heart gives out, Flowers mourns him and thus embarks on his own canonization. A second archangel appears in the form of a U.S. Army employee named Edwin Shuck, who ensures Flowers’ financial success, at least for a while.
Flowers arrived in Singapore just as it was emerging from the cloak of colonialism. Even so, barflies leftover from the Empire populate the bars, exchanging enough British witticisms to make an American reader want to dump a crate of tea in Singapore Harbour.
Having left home for good reason, Flowers didn’t really want to be seen as an American, lampooning his countrymen as “the glad-hander, the ham with the loud jokes and big feet and flashy shirts.” But his Americanness had advantages when it came to pimping. “Being American was part of my uniqueness,” he says. Against his will, Flowers purposefully exaggerates his accent and becomes known as The Yank, making his rounds on a well-upholstered trishaw, making friends with Chinese bargirls and foreign sailors in order to twain East and West.
Remaining at his day job to keep his visa, the streetwise pimp and porn-pusher opens his own brothel, poetically named the Dunroamin. The brothel is a big hit in the demimonde of expats but not the underworld of Chinese secret society gangsters, who kidnap and torture him, tattoo him with Chinese expletives and torch his bordello.
With money from the U.S. Army, the burnt-out brothel owner survives purgatory to become the glad-handing proprietor of the Paradise Gardens, which succors G.I.s on R & R from Vietnam for five days at a time. Happy in his Eden, catering to sexually starved G.I.s, Flowers begins to see himself as a saint awaiting annunciation. “I was the kind of angel I expected to visit me,” he explains. “I was a noisy cheerful creature. But the mutters in my mind told me I was Saint Jack.”
On this Earth, Uncle Sam giveth and Uncle Sam taketh away. When a change in Pentagon policy shutters Saint Jack’s profitable Paradise, Flowers seeks out Shuck, the Government man who once told him, “We’re all whores one way or another.” Funny that it’s Shuck, a decidedly Ugly American, who gives Saint Jack a shot at salvation.
Flowers was a colorful character out of Boston who washed up in Singapore, much like Paul Theroux, who lectured at a university there in 1968. The author first introduces Flowers as an untrustworthy narrator of his own tawdry Conradian tale. At 53, after years at sea and 14 years in Singapore, Flowers is no longer a Devil-may-care American college dropout. He’s as dispassionate about his day job as an odd-jobber in a Chinese ship chandlery, as he is about his sideline, conscientiously providing Chinese and Malay girls for sailors and married men. Despite a well-earned reputation for provisioning ships and hotels with local women, he doesn’t think of himself as a pimp, merely as A Useful Man, with a reputation for having “a finger in every tart.”
Flowers fawns over his johns like a sycophant, unable to speak his own mind. Dining with one of his customers, he reluctantly passes up the seafood he craves because the customer suggests the food isn’t up to par. Flowers is wilting but not without hope, composing over and over in his mind letters congratulating him on winning a fortune in a hoped-for future.
Into his dispirited life comes a cool-eyed English auditor named William Leigh, who casts shadows like a funeral shroud over Flowers’ purposeful life as a part-time ponce. When Leigh’s heart gives out, Flowers mourns him and thus embarks on his own canonization. A second archangel appears in the form of a U.S. Army employee named Edwin Shuck, who ensures Flowers’ financial success, at least for a while.
Flowers arrived in Singapore just as it was emerging from the cloak of colonialism. Even so, barflies leftover from the Empire populate the bars, exchanging enough British witticisms to make an American reader want to dump a crate of tea in Singapore Harbour.
Having left home for good reason, Flowers didn’t really want to be seen as an American, lampooning his countrymen as “the glad-hander, the ham with the loud jokes and big feet and flashy shirts.” But his Americanness had advantages when it came to pimping. “Being American was part of my uniqueness,” he says. Against his will, Flowers purposefully exaggerates his accent and becomes known as The Yank, making his rounds on a well-upholstered trishaw, making friends with Chinese bargirls and foreign sailors in order to twain East and West.
Remaining at his day job to keep his visa, the streetwise pimp and porn-pusher opens his own brothel, poetically named the Dunroamin. The brothel is a big hit in the demimonde of expats but not the underworld of Chinese secret society gangsters, who kidnap and torture him, tattoo him with Chinese expletives and torch his bordello.
With money from the U.S. Army, the burnt-out brothel owner survives purgatory to become the glad-handing proprietor of the Paradise Gardens, which succors G.I.s on R & R from Vietnam for five days at a time. Happy in his Eden, catering to sexually starved G.I.s, Flowers begins to see himself as a saint awaiting annunciation. “I was the kind of angel I expected to visit me,” he explains. “I was a noisy cheerful creature. But the mutters in my mind told me I was Saint Jack.”
On this Earth, Uncle Sam giveth and Uncle Sam taketh away. When a change in Pentagon policy shutters Saint Jack’s profitable Paradise, Flowers seeks out Shuck, the Government man who once told him, “We’re all whores one way or another.” Funny that it’s Shuck, a decidedly Ugly American, who gives Saint Jack a shot at salvation.
December 9, 2018
There's been no need for any expat to write about Singapore life since the publication of this book (except Singapore Grip by JG Farrell). It's all been said or done by Saint Jack Flowers and the other
inhabitants of this book.
The "sultry climes" attitude to criminality and sexuality has been described before by Orwell in Burmese Days, by Somerset Maughan (somewhere), by Anthony Burgess in the Malay Trilogy and no doubt every other writer under the tropical sun. (There is a book called Sultry Climes, which is testament to this.)
One of the things I like about Saint Jack, is that it mocks the slack-jawed cliches of the many visitors to town; merchant marines, tourists on the stop-overs, soldiers on R&R, because Jack knows them all, has seen it all, heard it all, done it all.
As interesting aside, Paradise Gardens, the "hotel" for American soldiers on their 5 days of R&R, mentioned as being on Adam Rd, was probably Shelford House, the first of these US organised resorts, which was indeed on Adam Rd. There was another one, Newton Gardens, that was just opposite where I live now, on the site of Residences @ Evelyn. There is a photo online somewhere which shows the band that used to play ay Newton Gardens. There is also have a scan of one the drinks vouchers as well, plus snaps of some of the working girls there.
inhabitants of this book.
The "sultry climes" attitude to criminality and sexuality has been described before by Orwell in Burmese Days, by Somerset Maughan (somewhere), by Anthony Burgess in the Malay Trilogy and no doubt every other writer under the tropical sun. (There is a book called Sultry Climes, which is testament to this.)
One of the things I like about Saint Jack, is that it mocks the slack-jawed cliches of the many visitors to town; merchant marines, tourists on the stop-overs, soldiers on R&R, because Jack knows them all, has seen it all, heard it all, done it all.
As interesting aside, Paradise Gardens, the "hotel" for American soldiers on their 5 days of R&R, mentioned as being on Adam Rd, was probably Shelford House, the first of these US organised resorts, which was indeed on Adam Rd. There was another one, Newton Gardens, that was just opposite where I live now, on the site of Residences @ Evelyn. There is a photo online somewhere which shows the band that used to play ay Newton Gardens. There is also have a scan of one the drinks vouchers as well, plus snaps of some of the working girls there.
July 26, 2025
Jack Flowers es un perdedor con gracia. No el tipo entrañable, ni el pícaro que uno termina admirando. Es más bien un hombre que camina sobre la costra de la mugre moral con cierta elegancia y sin pedir disculpas. Vive en Singapur, un lugar que Paul Theroux retrata como un infierno húmedo de corrupción, hipocresía y almas rotas.
La novela se sostiene sobre una ambigüedad deliciosa: uno no sabe si debe compadecer, admirar o despreciar a Jack. Tiene códigos, sí, pero también vive de explotar a mujeres. Se quiere salir del sistema, pero termina siendo devorado por él. Su sueño no es redentor: es abrir su propio burdel. Lo que en otra novela sería tragicómico, aquí es simplemente triste.
Theroux escribe sin adornos. Su estilo es seco, casi cruel. No hay exotismo en su Singapur, solo clima, sudor, vigilancia, decadencia. Me gustó que la historia no busque enseñarte nada. Solo muestra. Y eso tiene más valor que cualquier moraleja barata.
Lo que queda al final no es admiración por Jack, sino una especie de ternura amarga. Como si hubieras visto a un hombre bailar solo mientras el resto del mundo lo ignora.
Un buen libro sobre un mal lugar, y sobre alguien que intentó no ahogarse… aunque lo hizo sin hacer olas.
La novela se sostiene sobre una ambigüedad deliciosa: uno no sabe si debe compadecer, admirar o despreciar a Jack. Tiene códigos, sí, pero también vive de explotar a mujeres. Se quiere salir del sistema, pero termina siendo devorado por él. Su sueño no es redentor: es abrir su propio burdel. Lo que en otra novela sería tragicómico, aquí es simplemente triste.
Theroux escribe sin adornos. Su estilo es seco, casi cruel. No hay exotismo en su Singapur, solo clima, sudor, vigilancia, decadencia. Me gustó que la historia no busque enseñarte nada. Solo muestra. Y eso tiene más valor que cualquier moraleja barata.
Lo que queda al final no es admiración por Jack, sino una especie de ternura amarga. Como si hubieras visto a un hombre bailar solo mientras el resto del mundo lo ignora.
Un buen libro sobre un mal lugar, y sobre alguien que intentó no ahogarse… aunque lo hizo sin hacer olas.
May 29, 2018
It's not easy to write a sensitive portrait of a low-budget American "ship chandler" (or pimp) in Asia, but Theroux does it with humor and candor. Maybe too much, because as the details accumulate about Jack Flowers' seedy lifestyle and environment, so do his interior monologues about middle-aged failure. Most puritans might pay a lazy "you get what you pay for" response. Luckily, Theroux's rich portrait of Singapore and it's desperate characters is so earthy and, again, detailed, it makes the short novel more a work of anthropology. Unlike any obvious notions about the world of pre-sex trafficking 1973, the book shows nothing exotic. It makes male peer pressure, despair, and a lot of fatigued bar-room bravado its subject. Nothing is sexy. Nothing is cool. There's laughs found in watching things turn sour in Flowers' life. The descriptions of Singapore's American, British, Chinese, Vietnamese cultural clashes are as compelling as the numerous ways Flowers fails to sustain an income from crime but can still tell a funny joke.
July 4, 2025
Clearly not the sort of book I normally read, it came in a stack of books from a friend with whom I trade. A real flash-back to the 60s mostly . . . in Shanghai! The saving grace of this novel IMHO is the ever-expanding and razor-sharp introspection shared with the reader by the author/protagonist. I have no doubt all the people and events presented here have their base in the reality of time and place. While it's not a pornographic novel, it relies heavily on obliquely described sexual encounters & prostitutes' encounters with customers, and the seedy underworld and hard living life of expats to give us the basis for his enlightenment. I was reminded of the Peggy Lee song, "Is that all there is?"
December 27, 2017
Men have no double standard to hold them back from doing things like going to a foreign country and staying on there, thinking at first they'll just stay awhile, long enough to make their fortune, and then go home, settle down and live the good life. But what if they never make their fortune at anything, and just kind of limp along, their inertia growing. Until they realize they're old. An American pimp and ship Chandler in Singapore tries different ways of making his fortune.
November 1, 2022
I've seldom read a novel that lacks so much structure, with no plot, just a rambling set of words as if the author was writing in a diary. The only reason I hung on to the end was a belief that the ramblings were done on purpose, and surely a well structured plot will emerge, to no end. A also hung on because i lived for a number of years in Singapore, and many of the places mentioned were familiar. For that, however, I would have had more joy looking at a map.
June 14, 2019
A very engaging character-study of Jack Flowers, an ex-pat American hustler trying to scrape together a living in Vietnam War-era Singapore. Not surprisingly, given Theroux's gift for travel writing, the sense of place leaps off the page as do his cast of characters.
Film-director Peter Bogdanovich adapted the novel into a very fine and much under-rated film starring Ben Gazzara.
Film-director Peter Bogdanovich adapted the novel into a very fine and much under-rated film starring Ben Gazzara.
July 2, 2021
Written in another time but Theroux is still a great writer of both fiction and travel. His description of Singapore are of a time gone by, but the story and plot hold up well. It should be mentioned that in today's world some of the descriptions of people are, how should I say, racially insensitive. Still very good though.
March 17, 2023
I enjoyed the descriptions of post colonial Singapore. It summed up the transition from a young explorer trying to make his mark, to the middle aged expat becoming marooned far away from home. Theroux can always add a good touch of sleaze too. I wasn’t routing as much for Jack Flowers though as I had for other characters in his other works.
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