The Fish That Ate the Whale by Rich Cohen

You have to guess the original colors, but with common sense and a creative bent, you can approximate the original colors. I would equate this strategy to colorizing a black and white photo. Cohen artfully did was to breathe life into the skeleton of Sam the Banana Man. The way I see it, there probably wasn't a lot of factual, objective information about Zemurray's life, his private life in particular. Even though some of this may be true, I particularly champion the author's style. Cohen's role in this book, especially how he uses the first person and, to the taste of some, conjectures too much about Zemurray. I took the time to read some of the reviews on this book Amazon, and there is a tendency to criticize Mr. I advise you to hold onto your seats when you start reading this book, because Rich Cohen takes off at a gallop and never slows to ensure the reader that there is never a dull moment. Along the way, you will come across military coups, bribery, colorful characters who seem like they came out of a novel or movie and the colorful public and private life of Sam Zemurray, a constant overshadowing theme throughout the book. Lastly, he took over the United Fruit Company, one of the most notorious or glorious companies of the first half of the 20th century, depending on how you look at it.

His next step was to buy land in Central America, specifically Honduras, and streamline the banana growing business. Then he moved on to trading in green bananas from Central America which fared better. Not content with the status quo, Sam went on to bigger and better things: bananas! He started out with 'ripes', bananas too ripe to reach market in time. After his father's death, he emigrated to the United States, specifically Selma, Alabama. For starters, he was the son of a Jewish wheat farmer in Bessarabia (present-day Moldavia). Who was Sam Zemurray? Where did he come from? Where did he go? What did he do? If you do not know all of the answers to these questions, you will be in for a true surprise.

The Fish That Ate the Whale by Rich Cohen