Review by Charles Cassady, Jr.
I confess that during my long, bleak bachelor years I often indulged in a quasi-imperialist romantic fantasy, the type inspired by too much reading Graham Greene and Somerset Maugham during dateless nights. That maybe if I hit 40 or 50 and still had no girlfriend, I might scrape together my savings, fly out to some Third World hellhole, and find a sweet-faced, desperate young prostitute. I'd ask her to come to America with me as a sort of mail-order bride. "Oh yes Yankee!" she'd say brightly. "Me wanna go America! Me be good wife, me love you longtime! Me just have to ask, what you do in career?" And when I told her, the almond eyes would narrow and she'd say, "Film critic? In Cleveland? Now me have second thought. There still Khmer Rouge here, they turn cannibal, live in jungle caves, make much better husband material. You leave now, Yankee Charles. No touch door knob on way out. We run clean place, no Cleveland film-critic germs!"