One Big Damn Puzzler

by John Harding

Overview

On an island paradise somewhere in the South Pacific, Managua—the only native who can read or write—is busily translating Hamlet into pidgin English when a plane interrupts his noble work. Strapping on his false leg, he makes his way to the landing strip to greet the unexpected arrival: William Hardt, a young American lawyer driven by his misguided ambition to win reparations for the island's inhabitants.

Hardt is not the first white outsider to pay a visit; the British came earlier, bringing their language, the small pigs that run wild in the jungle, and Shakespeare . . . and the Americans followed with guns, land mines, and Coca-Cola. But in this place of riotously logical ritual, Hardt's determined quest to do good could make him the most devastating visitor of all.

Profoundly moving and achingly funny, One Big Damn Puzzler brilliantly explores the collision of the twenty-first century with unsullied pagan reality—and establishes John Harding as one of the most imaginative contemporary chroniclers of the human condition.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780061132186
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	03/27/2007
Series:	P.S. Series
Pages:	512
Sales rank:	165,783
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 7.80(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

John Harding was born in a small Fenland village in the Isle of Ely in 1951. He studied English at St. Catherine's College, Oxford, and worked as a newspaper reporter and magazine editor before becoming a freelance writer. Harding is the author of two previous novels, What We Did on Our Holiday, which was shortlisted for the WH Smith New Talent Award, and the acclaimed While the Sun Shines. He lives in Richmond upon Thames with his wife and two sons.

Editorial Reviews

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Fans of The Sex Lives of Cannibals and Getting Stoned with Savages will hoot riotously over Harding's timely tale. Managua, an elder member of an aboriginal tribe on a remote Pacific island, is the sole literate member of his community. An incomplete copy of Hamlet in hand, Managua has dedicated himself to translating the play for the edification of his people, using the island's limited lexicon. "Is be or is be not," he interprets the famous soliloquy, "is be one big damn puzzler."

After their departure from the island, the relatively benign British left a smattering of culture, an introduction to pork, and an unfinished hotel; whereas subsequently, the American military left a history of rape, a trail of unexploded ordnance (like many of his fellow islanders, Managua has only one leg), and, ominously, a generalized craving for Coca-Cola.

Young American lawyer William Hardt is determined to win compensation for the injuries sustained by the islanders. But wise Managua knows that dollars mean trouble. Yet Hardt cannot counter the impact of his well-meant yet naïve actions -- except by adapting to the old ways of the islanders himself. Supremely entertaining, with a clever plot that entwines classic literature, current events, and common sense, One Big Damn Puzzler is a must-read. (Summer 2007 Selection)

Set on a fictional South Pacific island inhabited by black bantam pigs and a clan of nearly-naked eccentrics, this excessively zany British import has a raging conscience and a muted heart. Managua, a one-legged tribesman (most of his fellow inhabitants are missing limbs), is obsessed with transcribing Hamletinto island pidgin and finds his unconventional paradise disturbed when William Hardt, a white American lawyer, arrives to arrange reparations for natives whose limbs have been blown off by the landmines left behind years ago by the American military. Hardt soon witnesses a staggering array of peculiarities: the "the shitting beach" where villagers empty their bowels every morning; transvestite men forced into dressing in drag by parents who wanted girls; vision quests brought on by consuming "kassa," a red hallucinogenic paste. A few years after his departure from the island, Hardt's successful mission has drastic consequences for the island. Journalist Harding (While the Sun Shines) is an equal opportunity and brutally sharp lampooner, though he sometimes misses (notably in his invocation of 9/11 as a parallel to corporate America's exploitation of the island). Folly, silliness and cultural sucker punches come at full speed in this ribald, imaginative farce. (Apr.)

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