THE ROPE IN THE JUNGLE

by Gary Jennings ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 15, 1976

Way back in 1905 and somewhere in the jungles of Chiapas, Mexico there was a rope four miles long, and when it snapped, Caleb Crabtree, master ropemaker, was summoned from his ropewalk in Massachusetts to do the specialized job of splicing it. This nine-ton wire rope is the thread on which Jennings hangs an incredible tale that takes Caleb and his young companion, Trey Clarke, into the thick of a three-way struggle among mining engineer Robert Lacaud who wants the rope to transport copper ore; Professor Wolf-Heinze, not content to discover Olmec civilation but determined to revive it; and the reclusive Xiu people who want only to be left alone and eventually get their way. But not until Trey has been poisoned by the tchetchem tree, mistaken the Professor's daughter for a deathly local siren, the xtabai (a cheery greeting of ""Gross Gotti"" brings him to his senses) and rescued this same daughter from sacrifice by the (justifiably) furious Xiu by pouring potassium hydroxide in their cenote and turning the sacred well into an inferno. Meanwhile the doughty, oblivious Caleb lectures on the nomenclature of ropes and takes pride in a good Yankee repair job. Jennings has assimilated a tremendous amount of lore on everything from knot-making to the cutthroat world of the chiclero and Mayan/Olmec archaeology; he stirs it all together and--presto--delivers a flashy, funny concoction. He'll have you wondering whether it's all a spoof, or whether there really was a grandfather Trey Clarke who went to someplace very like Xiumapan and lived to tell about it.

Pub Date: Sept. 15, 1976

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Lippincott

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1976

Categories: FICTION