Pumice

During a sailing voyage to Tahiti, Bartholomew Brown recounts his youth on an island city-state in the 1970s. Arriving as a penniless paint-chipper, he is adopted by strange expatriates, locals with ulterior motives, and the religious and political authorities who dominate the island. He falls in love, is heart-broken, and reels between sympathy and callousness. As the country surges with breakneck development, Bart fights a slide into debauchery which his eccentric friends vainly try...
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During a sailing voyage to Tahiti, Bartholomew Brown recounts his youth on an island city-state in the 1970s. Arriving as a penniless paint-chipper, he is adopted by strange expatriates, locals with ulterior motives, and the religious and political authorities who dominate the island. He falls in love, is heart-broken, and reels between sympathy and callousness. As the country surges with breakneck development, Bart fights a slide into debauchery which his eccentric friends vainly try to stop. Seeking answers, he delves into the kaleidoscopic humanity of the island, which has absorbed human detritus from all over Asia and the Pacific for centuries. He is consumed by its pantheon of gods ranging from Filipino monsters to Hindu avatars, from corrupted Catholic saints and Sufi mysticism to Tao Immortals and Melanesian cargo cults. As Bart falls deeper into this cultural swamp, so too does he fall deeper into its political turmoil and his own failings as a man.