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Saviors
Copyright © 1998
by Paul Eggers
Harcourt Brace
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Once in a rare while a novel comes along that succeeds in taking us away
from home in order to show us what it means to be American. The saviors
of this brilliantly witty and wise novel set in a Vietnamese refugee camp
off the coast of Malaysia are, among others, a pair of contrasting
Americans:
the outsized, outrageous, and highly opinionated Reuben Gill, and a
thoughtful,
diplomatic woman named Bobbie Porkpie Sortini.
Like a feudal kingdom, the refugee camp on the island of Bidong has a law of
its own that occasionally takes note of the Vietnamese but usually ignores
their needs and natures. The island is home to an array of unpredictable
characters — Gurmit Singh, a Sikh in charge of Bidong who is
woefully in over his head; a Malaysian police captain with a power base
all his own; a variety of self-important refugee workers; and, of course,
the
Vietnamese. Faced with this odd collection of people and the imminent
decision of whether or not to close the camp, it is no wonder that Reuben
and Porkpie find themselves fomenting rebellion.
Gently but firmly, Paul Eggers draws us into one of the world's most recent
hearts of darkness. He writes with a lyricism rooted in the mud and smell
of a refugee camp, an authenticity that can come only from personal
acquaintance with such a life, and a sense of humor that can come only
from surviving the experience. An antic combination of Graham Greene's
The Comedians and Catch-22, Saviors is about the lure of the
exotic, the clash of cultures, and the struggle between power and love.
Wow! What a debut! Eggers is a masterful writer, and this book positions
him to joing the ranks of Maugham and Forster and Conrad, Paul Theroux
and Norman Rush. Saviors is as funny as Twain and as dark as
Stone. I gulped it down, amazed by the deftness of Eggers's style.
Saviors is an enormously accomplished and
entertaining novel....[I] wouldn't be surprised if this novel ends up being
short-listed for all the major prizes. — Bob Shacochis
Paul Eggers seems to have learned from someone that the novelist is
allowed to think, so bravo! This is a
serious (i.e., not trivial), searching, painful first novel by someone
as daring as he is well-informed. — Paul West
Saviors is never anything but spirited, funny and, if such a word
can be used, wise. It is a
lovely book, keenly perceived, original and wonderful to read.
Saviors is not only a moving and entertaining novel, but also one
that brings us closer to an understanding of just how the human spirit
operates in the face of adversity. — Craig Nova
Maybe a book can't save the world, but it can give us real insight into
what inspires people to try and, all too often, dooms them to fail. By turns
elegiac, comic, personal, and political, Saviors is a
tour de force.
— Marly Swick
Reuben Gill of the
UN High
Commission for Refugees longs to be assigned to
Bidong. He believes he
can relive the days of his Peace Corps stint, when he
was a kind of savior
to the Malaysian villagers he encountered. When he
does get sent to the
camp, it's as a subengineer for the Sanitation
Division, a disciplinary
measure after he creates an embarrassing incident at
a party thrown by his
boss. What he finds on Bidong is complete chaos.
Reuben has a hard time
adjusting to life in the camp, in part because he is
overwhelmed by the
hopelessness of trying to make any difference. This
first novel is bleak but
also steeped in black humor that is reminiscent of
MASH. — Booklist
A fascinating portrait of one of the great historical dramas of our time.
— Kirkus Reviews
A nebraska author has written a rich, challenging, and rewarding novel that
would make a good book club choice. ... It's the kind of book you want to
talk about
with someone else who's read it. — Nebraska Center for the Book
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