Tropic Death

by Eric Walrond

Vivid, lyrical, harshly real and at times quite moving, Tropic Death presents a collection of short sketches from the Caribbean and Central America. The book was first published in 1926, at the height of the Harlem Renaissance, to high acclaim. The stories chart the days of men working stone quarries or building the Panama Canal, of women tending gardens and rearing needy children. Early on addressing issues of skin color and class, Walrond imbued his stories with a remarkable compassion for lives controlled by the whims of nature and oppressed by the effects of colonialism.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, 20th Century, Classics, Unfinished, African American Literature, African American

196 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1926

Reviews

[Jonathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

very interesting indeed - essentially modernist in style with a complex use of dialect (which sometimes becomes distinctly difficult to parse) - should be a key text in any study of Afro-American/Caribbean lit

Wiki on him is worth reading if you are curious


Thanks to Anna for bringing him to my attention at the book club!

[Liam Porter · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tropic Death is vivid, lyrical, harshly real and at times quite moving. However first it should be warned that the language is very arcane for a modern reader. Though short, it's not a leisurely read.

The book presents a collection of short sketches from around the Caribbean and Central America, and (despite being publicized as a literary contribution of the Harlem Renaissance) it presumes a high level of familiarity with the geography and social climate of the region.

Here is an extract from the beginning of the short story "The White Snake":

On the banks of a bilgy lamahau, the eeliest street-stream in Bordeaux, a row of Negro peasant lodgings warmly slept. It was a vile, backward crescent reeking in brats and fiendish lusts. Cocabe among its inkish rice-growers extended to gorillas sentenced to the dungeons of Surinam, Portuguese settlers who'd gone black, Chinks pauperized in the Georgetown fire of '05 and Calcutta coolies mixing rotie at dusk to the chorus of crickets and crapeaux moaning in the black watery gut.

The cast is mainly black, the short stories covering towns in Hondouras, Barbadoes, Guinea and Panama.

White characters rarely appear except in roles of policing authority, and instead Walrond's focus is on the strained race-relations between coloured groups.

As in the block quote above, the narrator's casual use of ethnic slurs like "Chink" ("Cholo", "N****r", "Chiggah-foot") are frequent. All human relationships are pressurized and tensions are continually suspended. Walrond's focus is divided between the fertile landscapes of the region and the everyday stresses and earthy wit of the black peasants / immigrant workers.

This is especially thematic in the title story "Tropic Death", in which a middle class black child, Gerald Bright, is repeatedly interrupted from his hobby of staring at the sea to be immersed in the problems of the poor children around him and the troubled reunion of his mother and father.

The romantic descriptions of the climate are lyrical but seem to always burden the characters with more problems:

Sunday came. The sun baptised the sea. O tireless, sleepless sun! It burned and kissed things. It baked the ship into a loose, disjointed state. Only the brave hoarse breezes at dusk prevented it from leaving her so. It refused to keep things glued. It fried sores and baked bunions, browned and blackened faces, reddened and blistered eyes. It lured to the breast of the sea sleepy sharks ready to pounce upon prey.

(from "Tropic Death")

The frequent descriptions of the white quarries of 'marl', a kind of limestone, also have the same oppressive effect on the writing.

Death by arbitrary accident and disease is never far from possibility in these collections of thrown-together people.

There is so much dispute and grievance and aggressive heat in the book that it's a fairly downbeat experience, all round. The occasions of contented leisure and friendship, such as at the start of "The Wharf Rats", are in short supply - usually relations are stern, worried or physically aggressive. Few characters are particularly likable, as a result, and the novel has (deliberately?) little psychological depth: they are stories of action and consequences.

But having said that, the phoneticised Caribbean creole dialogue lead to serious difficulties merely reading the thing, speaking personally. I made a little glossary:

uman = "woman"
picknee = "child"
cyah = "care"
the gap = "mine"
unnas = "your"
fi' = "to" (infinite)
fomembah = "remember"
marl = a kind of limestone
bajan = person from Barbadoes
backra = white elite
cholo = native american (Latin slur)

It's an enjoyable read, if grim. Tropic Death provides a series of vivid glimpses into the lives of people usually in the background of such exotic novels.

Reading it, I thought that the style was strikingly similiar to Joseph Conrad, but rather than following Nostromo's jeopardised mine-owners, it follows the lives of the people in in the Sulaco pits, or digging the grand Panama Canal project for the highly financed European industrialists.

The itinerant nature of the short-story narrative dovetails with the rootless characters Walrond portrays, and shows a sort of life that isn't lived in fixed, stately buildings, but in suitcases and crowded ferry-trips: In constant attraction to limited opportunities.

[Peta · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love it! Review here ->https://youtu.be/lv1RrtFuFKM

[Seth Shimelfarb-Wells · Rating 4 out of 5]

This deserves five stars but my pea brain had to go slow bc the dialogue is hard to read in the most poetic ways. Not an easy read but a very very good read I’d rec to anyone with the slightest interest in Caribbean creative writing. “Subjection” is a really really great story. So is the “white snake”. The bajan inclination to refer to oneself as a third person bodyObjectSubject is always so arresting.

“Why yo’ don’t talk plain so dat a body can understan’ yo’?” (121). Paule Marshall makes this move too but there’s something about how selective warlond is w the phrase. Warlond was tremendously smart and obviously had an acute understanding of tone and rhythm while also having the most expansive vocabulary among his contemporaries. Hughes, Hurston, McKay do not match his lyricism (tho I think I prefer McKay?) and his attention to the natural (what grows, flows, is eaten, swims, smells, etc) separates him. Some incredibly visceral stories. Slightly jarring to go from the wandering yet polished voice of the narrator into quotidian (intimate) dialogue between kids/workers/families etc. this book has no real comparison. It is not like Cane but I understand why people conflate the two as “experimental” given their proximity in release. Could say more could say less but this is what I ended up saying!

[Madelyn Elizondo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Breathtaking imagery. I loved having to re-read to delineate the real from the surreal; in doing this you realize that they are all too similar. Sheds light on the beauty of Caribbean multiculturalism and the subsequent blending of culture, language and identity. Framed during the construction of the Panama Canal, this text also highlights some of the fallouts of American imperialism/exceptionalism and how this is manifested in the black experience outside of America- really interesting imposition of U.S. racial categorization on a society incompatible with such compartmentalization. Also, really interesting depiction of post-colonial identity formation.

[Clearani Luh · Rating 2 out of 5]

I decided to finish reading this book, even though I'm still on page around 60. The main reason is because I found myself difficult to understand the dialogs between the character. The words that the writer use perhaps represent how the black people speak and the culture also. However, for me this is kind of new because I rarely read a book with that kind of words. If I'm not mistaken, the last time I 've read that kind of words was a long time ago, when I read pirates book. So, unfortunately I have to make it end. Maybe if I have a time or if I'm not busy, I'll try to read the book again.

[Joey Carney · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good, stories sort of fell into obscurity, maybe because Walrond left Harlem right when the Harlem Renaissance was in full swing. Stories from Barbados and the Spanish Caribbean, colorful language, diverse as Harlem was at the time.

[Maddie Piffard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great collection of shorts by Eric Walrond. At times it was a bit challenging to understand the accents he portrayed, but overall I feel it embellished each story. You really feel like you're in the Caribbean through each of these tales — the good, the bad, the ~tropic death~.

[ramona 🪽 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful and harrowing language unlike anything else I have read.

[Joelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Caribbean Tragedies filled with Irony. Very impactful read that stuck with me.

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

A superb gift of a book as far as lyrical beauty and storytelling prowess. Hemingway of the Caribbean, if you'll allow. The beautifully rendered patois makes this book nearly qualify as a foreign language and encourages readers to slow down. Incredible imagery and often very funny.

[Jodi Clarke · Rating 3 out of 5]

I din't understand much of it but the characters manage to touch you for the briefest moment that they appear.

[Diana Carcano]

A little hard to read because of dialect but excellent.