The Fish That Ate the Whale: The Life and Times of America’s Banana King
by Rich Cohen
Macmillan USA (4 June 2013)
What’s it about?: The story of Samuel Zemurray, the self-made banana mogul and infamous robber baron of the twentieth century. It’s a classic rags-to-riches story on an epic scale, with Zemurray going from a flat-broke Russian migrant and roadside banana merchant to the CEO of the United Fruit Company and controversial power broker, absolute kingmaker, and all round capitalist revolutionary.
My opinion: Before I read this book, I didn’t think the life of a fruit company CEO would be even remotely interesting. But I do love biographies, and when I first read it in my early twenties, at a time when I was really opening myself up to nonfiction books, I became obsessed with it. The entire compendium of Rich Cohen‘s work is awesome; I really enjoyed Tough Jews: Fathers, Sons and Gangster Dreams. However, for me, The Fish That Ate the Whale is on a completely different level. He tells the story Zemurray — the definition of a larger than life figure — with a voice that is truly unique and utterly compelling. Definitely a book for the desert island list.
The Fish That Ate the Whale is a biography that has everything: A story of the American dream, and everything that goes with it, good and bad; it’s history via expertly-crafted storytelling; all manner of violence and drama; and full of lessons and insights on life and business. The rise and fall of a man and his self-made empire, with banana cowboys, mercenary soldiers, Honduran peasants, CIA agents, and American statesmen rounding everything out. United Fruit was the biggest fruit company in the world, and as Cohen says, the brilliance of Zemurray “lies in the fact that he never lost faith in his ability to salvage a situation.” For all the challenges life threw at Zemurray — and there were many — he always had a way of pushing back, some sort of counter-move. No matter how hard things were, he found his way through it all.
Of course, being a rags-to-riches story, one tends to start off cheering for Zemurray as the underdog. As time went on, he became more of a capitalist robber baron, with his actions variously having positive and negative consequences. His role in the Honduran coup, the Guatemalan coup, and then Cuba and Che Guevara. Then there’s the funding of schools and universities, hospitals, power grids, infrastructure, and more. Did he do more good than bad? I’ll leave that question for others.
Awesome book, no matter what you’re into. Whether you approach it as a business book, or just a great biography, or work of nonfiction, it’s an example of just how mind-blowing and immersive writing can be.
Also worth a look: Ryan Holiday and Rich Cohen discussing overcoming all manner of obstacles, on the Daily Stoic podcast.
Lawrence Deveney 