The Sand Crabs: A Novel / By M.E. Morris

Having purchased his own island in Fiji, wealthy retired businessman Donald Foster extols the beauty of his private paradise. He has discovered that playing the role of the ""ugly American"" in Polynesia can be fun, if one has plenty of money to buy the respect of the natives. Impulsively, Foster decides to fire his loyal staff and ""go native"" himself. He plans to live alone in nature, with regular shipments to replenish his sumptuous larder. Almost immediately, though, he discovers that one of the recently departed servants, Japanese bartender Mirata Nakai, is actually the army sergeant who, in 1945, brutally tortured and permanently maimed Foster during his POW imprisonment in Okinawa. Predictably, the ex-Marine sets out to exact revenge by giving Nakai a dose of his own sadistic medicine. Foster won't kill Nakai because that would cut short the long-awaited thrill of torturing his archenemy, but Nakai escapes and commits seppuku (ritual suicide), thus demonstrating his moral and spiritual superiority over his American nemesis. Foster is arrested, but conveniently escapes punishment, as an error in deed recording has removed his island from legal authority. Although ripe with possibilities, this story is marred by Foster's obnoxious fatuity. He is a blatant racist, justifying the kidnapping and brutalizing of Nakai with a series of jingoistic rationales, half-baked bromides and sophomoric philosophy. He prides himself on having good taste and high morals, but he constantly mistakes wealth for sophistication, and vengeful cruelty for justice. Morris's transcriptions of native Fijian dialect is especially offensive, as is Foster's crackpot misogynist diatribe that concludes the novel. (May)