Photographer Jake Mayfield, undertaking a personal quest for artistic integrity, finds beauty, passion and racial discord on the lush and feral island of Soufriere. On his first day there he has a run-in with Rollo Joseph, a dangerous pseudo-rasta whose presence haunts him both physically and psychologically as their conflict escalates by surprising yet almost inevitable degrees. Mayfield takes refuge in the company of Sheila Faber, the German proprietor of the Red Ginger Restaurant and Rooms, and in the arms of her employee Rita Blanford, a reticent native girl.

In a panorama of island life the story moves back and forth from the streets of Granville, the capital town and Rollo’s turf, to the verdant surroundings of the Red Ginger and the tropical forests of the island’s highest peak, to the ramshackle seaside village of Pagan Bay, as Mayfield’s journey spirals downward into paranoia and criminal tourism. Part existential adventure, part love story, told in the candid voice of an American antihero, this earthy and idiosyncratic novel is a descriptive and sometimes humorous account of man’s essential dilemmas, a microcosm of sex, war and survival.

Photographer Jake Mayfield, undertaking a personal quest for artistic integrity, finds beauty, passion and racial discord on the lush and feral island of Soufriere. On his first day there he has a run-in with Rollo Joseph, a dangerous pseudo-rasta whose presence haunts him both physically and psychologically as their conflict escalates by surprising yet almost inevitable degrees. Mayfield takes refuge in the company of Sheila Faber, the German proprietor of the Red Ginger Restaurant and Rooms, and in the arms of her employee Rita Blanford, a reticent native girl.

Michael Jarvis was born on an air force base and traveled regularly, living as a child in Guam, Georgia, and England. He graduated from Florida International University and lives in Miami, scouting locations for various film projects and writing fiction. His short story, American Kestrel, was published in The Secret of Salt: An Indigenous Journal (Key West) in 2008.