The main characters of Far Tortuga are the nine members of the crew of the Lillias Eden, who put to sea in the Caribbean south of Cuba on a hunt for green turtle. Because they hail from Grand Cayman Island or its immediate neighbors, the reader must contend with a sense of history and culture that is at once primitive and modern, a kind of exotic interface between the two, producing a site for the novel to develop largely independent of expectations. Some of the characters are to a degree stereotypes, as for example the loving but inept son Buddy or the rum-sodden Vemon, and they serve as sounding boards for the actions and ideas of the others. Some remain cryptic in their function, like the consumptive Athens or the surly Brown. The reader's attention is perhaps most immediately drawn to the raging Captain Raib or the amiable...