The Fruit Palace

The Fruit Palace - Charles Nicholl

This 1986 narrative is an example of the great travel writing released in the late 1980s, like O’Hanlon’s book about Borneo and Chatwin’s about Patagonia. It is an account of his trip to Colombia on a magazine assignment to write ”'The Great Cocaine Story.” He gives superb descriptions of street scenes and bars, far-flung jungle villages, waterfronts, and even a slaughterhouse. To get the story, he becomes part of the story by posing as a coke buyer. Unlike O’Hanlon and Chatwin, though, I get the feeling that Nicholl is telling the truth with no embroidering. Well worth reading for those into adventure stories, Colombia and its gifted people, or books about dope.