The Fruit Palace
An Odyssey Through Colombia's Cocaine Underworld
Ratings1
Average rating5
15
An Odyssey Through Colombia's Cocaine Underworld
Ratings1
Average rating5
Writer Charles Nicholl undertakes a nervy quest into the dangerous underworld of Colombia's billion-dollar cocaine smuggling enterprise where he encounters the toughest backstreet bars in Bogota, hidden valleys in the Sierra Nevada, and an array of unruly
Reviews with the most likes.
This book was a four and a half star read, rounded up to 5.
Other reviews suggest it is dated, and focussed on the cocaine and nothing else, and is therefore somehow flawed. There is also the glorifying, gonzo style of journalism - the author becoming the story. For me these were positives, not negatives.
Dated? Well, sure - it was written in 1985, about travel primarily in 1983 (there were some stories from earlier travels in Colombia), so of course 33 years later it will not be a current story - it will be snapshot of the situation of the time... how can that be a negative? It's not a Lonely Planet guide.
Focussed on the drug culture - again - yes, primarily it is. Again - it's not a Lonely Planet guide, and the book makes no claim to be other than the travelogue of an author seeking “The Great Cocaine story” for his publisher.
The authors high octane adventures, in which he manages to find himself in what can only be described in perilously dangerous situations, dealing with shady people willingly or unwillingly, make this book all the more compelling to read, and hard to put down.
Believability? Yeah, I think the door is open for some speculation into how much embellishment there has been here, but who can tell - Colombia mid '80s was surely a pretty loose place to be.
Advocating of drug use? The author is certainly not holding back, and takes full advantage of the circumstances of his research - and this book goes no way towards condemning the evils of drugs (quite the opposite really), but this is not the purpose of this book.
The authors involvement on the grass roots side of the cocaine trade - as the blurb says - the corner boys and street girls, the fixers and smugglers, the ‘cooks' and the ‘mules', as well as the meeting with the man who was possibly the mister big, but circumstantially may have been... are the highlights. There are other things going on, some light history, some science on the manufacture, some other adventures, but ultimately it comes back to the cocaine.
A great read, I only hope his other books are as compelling.
