White Man’s Grave Richard Dool­ing
Pic­a­dor USA 1995World­Cat • Read Online • Library­Thing • Google Books • Book­Finder 

Boone West­fall has been sucked into the fam­ily insur­ance busi­ness after earn­ing what his father con­sid­ers to be a worth­less degree in fine arts. He hates the job and yearns to escape and see the world. He’s given just such a chance when Michael Kil­li­gan — his best friend from high school — sug­gests that they meet in Paris and back­pack around Europe. Boone arrives in Paris on the appointed date and waits for his friend; he eschews paid accom­mo­da­tions in favor of sleep­ing on the grave of Hec­tor Berlioz. Michael, who is work­ing as a Peace Corps vol­un­teer in Sierra Leone, never shows up.

Boone learns that Michael has gone miss­ing in the bush, and sets of for Africa to find him. Mean­while, Michael’s father Ran­dall, a hypochon­driac mega­lo­ma­niac bank­ruptcy lawyer, starts search­ing for Michael in his own way — by brib­ing Sierra Leonean offi­cials. As Boone delves deeper into the cul­tures of the Peace Corps and the tra­di­tional Mende peo­ple, Ran­dall becomes more and more involved with the volatile pol­i­tics of Sierra Leone.

In this book, Richard Dool­ing has cre­ated a hilar­i­ous and bit­ing piece of satire. Its con­stant cul­tural and ide­o­log­i­cal clashes and jux­ta­po­si­tions — Amer­ica vs. west­ern Africa, bureau­crats vs. tra­di­tional peo­ples, neu­ro­sur­geons vs. witch doc­tors, lawyers vs. witches, etc. — bring sur­pris­ing and uncom­fort­able sim­i­lar­i­ties to the fore. Dooling’s humor is quirky and dry, just the way I like it. His large cast of char­ac­ters is var­ied, inter­est­ing, and mem­o­rable. All in all, this is a fun read with some real substance.