The Liveright publishing imprint first published Eric Walrond's Tropic Death in 1926, when Walrond was 28. The short story collection was one of many outstanding books written by black authors during the Harlem Renaissance. Walrond came to New York from the Caribbean and all of the stories are set in Barbados, the Canal Zone, British Guiana or Panama.
Walrond's stories beautifully capture the daily lives of his characters. As Arnold Ampersand points out in his fine introduction to the 21st-century Liveright's reissued edition, Walrond "sought to fuse modernism with folk forms, the better to do justice to the complexity of Black life as it lurched uncertainly into the twentieth century." This meant that his characters speak in the region's various dialects, which can make for challenging reading. In a spooky tale about superstition and death, "The Vampire Bat," Walrond juxtaposes very lyrical, poetic language--"The wind soared to a higher, sturdier level. It blew like breezes on the gay Caribbean sea... But the moon ribbed the night and gave the canes, tottering on the high flat earth, a crystal cloaking"--with the harsh, realistic language of the people--"Mas' Prout wha' yo' a do down yah dis time o' night? Yo' na'h go home no?"
The book's title hints at Walrond's dark, often malevolent subject matter. Fatalism and pessimism abound, but his characters exhibit great fortitude and spirit to overcome their harsh and often deadly environment. --Tom Lavoie, former publisher