The White Man in the Tree is a comedy of cultural misunderstandings set in the Caribbean, New York, and Paris, a novella and eight stories about people who, because of their differences, misjudge each other. Whether it is a sophisticated European filmmaker, an ambitious young black Haitian woman, a promising politician obsessed with women's feet, or a fish-out-of-water rabbi in search of a kosher chicken in Curacao, each of Kurlansky's characters engages us with impulses and interactions that are by turns comic, insightful, and poignant. The White Man in the Tree is an...