The Boiling Season

On an unnamed Caribbean island, where lighter skin affords greater economioc stability, Alexandre, a boy from the slums, is hired as a servant to Senator Marcus, a powerful local politician. Alexandre becomes a household favorite thanks to the education his shopkeeper father sacrificed to give him, in the hope that Alexandre would “give back” as a doctor or lawyer, but Alexandre has “no aptitude for being a champion of the people.” Through his friendship with M. Guinee, an aging manager of the island capital’s grand hotel, Alexandre is introduced to the Habitation Louvois, a spectacular estate in arrested decay deep in the countryside. Mme. Freeman, a wealthy American businesswoman, buys the property and hires Alexandre as the manager, turning the property into a world-class resort. But as the island drifts into civil unrest and revolutionary chaos, Alexandre’s Shangri-La becomes more and more isolated and threatened by crowds of the poor from a violent shantytown that springs up outside the hotel gates. Alexandre as narrator, timid and unquestioning, lends a vagueness that undermines the exciting potential of the novel’s premise. Why, for instance, is the wealthy Mme. Freeman choosing a politically crumbling country to vacation in; how has the unguarded palatial Habitation Louvois remained undisturbed for 20 years; and what of Alexandre’s unexamined asexuality? Not fable-like enough to be so coy, Hebert’s debut is too windy to fashion thrills out of the gun battles and revolution, although there are poignant touches, particularly in the final third, as Alexandre reacts to the estate’s irreversible decay. But without dates, backstories, and understandings of the principal characters’ motivations, it’s a pretty tepid thriller. Agent: Bill Clegg, WME Entertainment. (Mar.)