For a young woman on the island of Corpus Christi, the alliance of Britain and the United States during World War II means the arrival of US serviceman as boarders in her house. She quickly learns that the soldiers' appetites go beyond the dining table to the island's more tempting and provocative fruits. To keep her young men out of the brothels, she spins them tales over supper each night, tales that seductively blend the Caribbean's exotic past with its spicy present. Now ninety-seven, the widow recounts these memories for the entertainment and education of her young grandson. Lyrical and lewd, fabulous and scatological, they tumble out in a tapestry of interlocking stories-within-stories, captured in the richly evocative Caribbean vernacular.
