Review: Boy With a Coin by Madison Smartt Bell
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 02 19, 2012
Charlie Chapo is a foreigner who is trying to integrate himself into Haitian culture and make himself  more Haitian than anything that he might naturally be.  As he sets out on the early morning of January 12, 2010 from the hotel he had been staying in above the city of Port-au-Prince, he is on a pilgrimage to see, for the second time, a man named Msye Granmou. Chapo has a long walk uphill to see him. Some of the Haitian people who are coming down the same path know him and he interacts with a few of them, but not for long.  He is on a mission and continues his walking.As he walks on, the earth trembles and opens up, swallowing a whole neighborhood of homes into a chasm, and Charlie could hear screams coming from it.  The Capitol building eventually falls, sending up a dust cloud, but Chapo keeps to his plan of walking to Granmou's.  His hat flies off and so do his sunglasses, but he shortly finds them and is happy they are not damaged, despite the screaming and devastation around him.Charlie has a lot of thoughts that run through his head, and at times he doesn't even understand them himself.  He wonders about their meanings, but he continues to be self-absorbed in accomplishing his goal. He stops to help no one.This Kindle Single is very well-written, but is confusing at times.  However, it is still worth reading for the individual's own interpretations of the story and the character of Charlie Chapo.