The Great Yacht Race

Montego Bay in 1955: in the twilight of the colonial era, with a fear of mayhem lurking just around the corner, class divisions are rife; racial and shade prejudice are rampant; and one of the main events on the social calendar of the town’s upper classes is the annual yacht race from Lucea to Montego Bay. Fritzie, the braggart, womanizing barrister, wins every year, much to the annoyance of many, including Angwin the magistrate and O’Hara the hotelier; then there is the less highly placed (and more coloured) pretentious reporter Biddle, determined to compete despite the sluggishness of his cutter. The lives of these Montegonians, full of scandal, deceit, and hypocrisy combined with a callous disregard for the less well-to-do, interweave with each other and with that of Father Huck, the American priest who ministers over them while trying to protect the rights of the disenfranchised and battling with his own conflicts. In exploring these lives, and tracing the build-up to the yacht race, Winkler provides us with an affectionately satirical, humorous view of a hypocritical and eccentric colonialist society.“The Great Yacht Race…is essentially the work of a master story teller.” Susan Knight, Caribbean Review of Books August 1992Please note that this is an eBook version of this title and can NOT be printed. For more information about eBooks, including how to download the software you’ll need, see our FAQs page.