Herman Wouk

I read "Don't Stop the Carnival" after moving the Caribbean and starting a single-suite bed and breakfast. Had I read it before hand, maybe I would have hesitated. Maybe I would have dismissed his '60s tale of strange characters and the havoc they wreak as fiction. Drama, yes. Fiction? Not quite. Wouk's work, dated and inflated though it may be, is a primer for someone dreaming of starting a business in the Caribbean.
Worrying over rains and empty cisterns, goods shipments, and odd contractors is par for the course here. Retiring here is one thing. Retiring to run a business, something else entirely. I met a resident who made just that plan and now has more business than "you can shake a stick at." Good for the pocketbook, bad for afternoons planned on the beach blanket.
From what I understand Wouk lived on St Thomas at some point. I don't think he managed a hotel as his protagonist Norman Paperman flees New York City to do. I won't spoil it, but Norman's daydream doesn't quite turn out as he imagined. Quite a bit of work is involved. Work. The word doesn't disappear once one crosses the southerly latitudes. The scenery helps, though.