Don't Stop the Carnival

In the Caribbean, Hawaii, Capri, in fact wherever people seek in vain to escape from their true selves, they wryly laugh at and quote Don't Stop the Carnival. This is Herman Wouk's authentic picture of hotel-keeper Norman Paperman, discovering a new illicit love with a fading film star, amid zany mishaps and disasters recognizable to anyone who has lived on an island in the sun. Wouk and his family did just that for seven years. My wife and I almost went out of our minds, he has written, but much of the time we laughed like hell, and so survived. I trust that what is mainly preserved in this tale is the laughter.