THE TRIANGLE ROUTE: THE EXTRAORDINARY JOURNEY OF AN ORDINARY MAN
Reviewed By R
Leonard Bartholomew
Thursday, November 07, 2013.
The human spirit will always trump the material
safeguards of wealth or privilege – that’s the message from accountant turned
writer E.A Samuels, whose enthralling memoir The Triangle Route – the Extraordinary Journey of an
Ordinary Man (Woodfield), charts his unlikely rise from Caribbean
street urchin to senior financial executive of two Fortune 500 companies. The
rag to riches theme is, of course, the common fare to be found in the
autobiography section in any bookstore. Yet what this reviewer found
refreshing is the writer’s decision to not make heavy weather of the poverty he
experienced as a child, but rather, to look at it as a mere backdrop to an
aggressively positive outlook on life.
In the following extract, Mr Samuels recalls a train journey across Jamaica that
he experienced as a child:
"On one occasion, I needed to use the
bathroom and was shocked to see the rails rushing by when I looked down into
the toilet bowl. There was no collection tank on the train toilets so all the
waste matter fell onto the tracks....eventually dried up by the hot tropical
sun. Land crabs I was told roamed the tracks and helped in the disposal
process. This was truly amazing."
When the author was born Jamaica was still a British colony, but one which
Europe’s greatest empire could ill afford, struggling as it was with social
change at home, an economic downswing wrought by the second world war, and
having to fall in line with a new world order headed by The Soviet Union and the
United States. Not surprisingly, the author in common with compatriots in the
English-speaking Caribbean came to view the United States as a new Jerusalem -
and themselves as the independent minded children of a waning colonial power.
But it was in Britain that Mr Samuels spent some of his formative years,
eating fish and chips from inky newspapers and feeling nonplussed by the
privations of a post war Britain where the white and black underclass endured
hardships not yet visited on his island. And yet - surprisingly
different to a slew of Caribbean writers in English - Samuels' focus is not on
England. His experience here as a child is dealt with briefly, placed summarily
at the start of the book and barely echoes any major influence on his adult
life.
It’s the Jamaican and American experience - Mr Samuels refers to himself
as Jamerican - which animates this engaging account of one man’s march
from the margins.
The tough Jamaican tenement yards in which Mr Samuels was raised, one
ironically called Hamptons, are presented here as cruel schools for the rapid
begetting of wisdom. In these, the heavy threat of casual violence - often
accompanied with extravagant verbal abuse - dovetailed neatly with the most
unexpected generosity and compassion.
“Survival in a tenement environment involves
walking a fine line between insisting on getting what is rightfully yours and
relinquishing some of these rights....it requires the application of
interpersonal skills and use of conflict resolution techniques that the participants
acquire in this crucible of poverty.”
Memorable characters from the tenements with names like “Ma-mud”, “Pa-
clay” and “Little Wicked” - "so named because of her small
stature and aggressive demeanour" - are scene stealers in this
sometimes shocking but always compelling account:
“[Little Wicked and Miss Rachael] were
continually quarrelling over who should sweep the yard. But when Miss Rachael
became ill and had to be admitted to hospital, Little Wicked was the one who
cooked for Miss Rachael’s small children and combed her daughter’s hair for
school.”
The writer’s experiences in New York - where he worked variously as a
put upon doorman and a rail track labourer, while studying for an MBA
- again reveal that unshakeable faith in humanity and of experience being
life's best teacher:
“The construction work was hard and backbreaking
but it had its positive effects. I had been overweight when I started working,
but in no time had become chiselled and muscular, the result of lifting heavy
wooden ties and swinging the spiking hammer from morning to evening. I was
literally being paid to exercise."
Sometimes the narrative dips into the sentimental, but the writer could be
forgiven this – it is after all a rag to riches tale – although some would
reject his sunny optimistic view that “human nature is basically good”,
especially in light of the extremes he experienced in the tenements
and as an immigrant sleeping al fresco on New York’s streets.
Mr Samuels' recollections - which frustratingly span only ages four to twenty
seven - remain an astonishing page turner, an often humorous, always accessible
self portrait of an ordinary man – a Mr Nobody that you would love to meet by
the end of the book.
The
Triangle Route – the Extraordinary Journey of an Ordinary Man
Author:
E.A Samuels
Publisher:
Woodfield
R Leonard
Bartholomew is Director of Seriously Good Publicity. He can be
reached on Facebook as ‘sgpcomms’ and by email at sgpcomms@gmail.com