Crabs in a Barrel Book

Acclaimed author Byron Harmon’s third novel is a frank, no-holds-barred comedy with a sharp satirical edge. When a yachtful of party-goers headed for the Bahamas are shipwrecked and wash up on a remote island, the diverse group—ten African Americans and their white captain—are left with the usual survivor struggles: to find food, to shelter themselves, and to somehow figure out how to get back to civilization. But in their case, they also have to try not to kill each other in the effort. Before long, the different castaways—including a beautiful waitress/med student, a wealthy lawyer, a Brooklyn thug, a Black Muslim, and two gold-digging cousins—square off and start firing about their differences, their grievances, and their opinions, in exchanges that are as funny as they are explosive. Harmon uses this Gilligan’s Island meets Survivor set-up to create a story that airs out the truth about how black people feel about themselves, each other, and most everyone else.

Kirkus Reviews

A lackluster novel about a storm and a shipwreck, from Harmon (Mistakes Men Make, 2005, etc.). Welcome aboard The King's Dream, a charter yacht carrying a small group of black clients to a party in the Bahamas. When an oven explodes, the passengers hop to a lifeboat-on which the characters get to introducing themselves and joshing with one another, no panic, no terror. Finally, the gang is deposited on a desert island. Sahara, one of the yacht's waitresses, lectures the group on how to avoid malaria, and chastises others when they bicker. A few of the guys get high. The lovely African-American ladies in the crew badger a brother about his white girlfriend. One character who happens to be packing heat, forces another to perform oral sex on him. Meanwhile, the storm that drove this motley crew onto the island in the first place is fast becoming a Category 3 hurricane. The only literary skill Harmon evinces is the clever interweaving of a subplot: Due to the storm, the Coast Guard has called off their search, so one of the passenger's friends, Mike, and the passenger's father, Henri, set out on their own to find the castaways. But Harmon violates the old show-don't-tell rule on every page. In particular, he summarizes too many conversations, missing a particularly good opportunity for emotional impact when he glosses over the conversation in which Mike tells Henri that his son is likely dead. Will the castaways survive? It's hard to imagine that readers will care. Stick with Lord of the Flies.