176 pages
Published 1957
Read from November 19 to November 21
Rating: 2 out of 5
Let’s continue the nautical theme from Treasure Island with this early atomic pulper. It’s a somewhat interesting stew of 1950s cliches and concerns, mixing aqua-lung diving, a young man with father issues, intelligent octopuses, Seabees building a submarine base, radioactive sea monsters, and global nuclear war. The second half becomes a West Indies-flavored, less good version of On the Beach (which was published the same year).
Sadly, we have to weather a white author in the 1950s attempting to portray islanders of intermingled ethnic heritage. (There’s a “voodoo witch doctor.” Every islander speaks in dialect and says “mon” in every sentence. The entire island is impoverished and lazy and superstitious, except for a few motivated individuals who become San Isadore’s “natural leaders.”) Still, while tiresome, and quite racist, it isn’t as comprehensively racist as it could have been in 1957. Small victories?
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