The Fish that Ate the Whale: The Life and Times of America’s Banana King Audiobook

Quotes

• “Lively and entertaining.”

  — Boston Globe

• “Eminently readable…The banana is lovely in its simplicity, but it turns out the man who ruled the banana kingdom for generations was quite the opposite—part conquistador, part pioneering businessman. Zemurray walked the line, and his interlaced legacies make for a fascinating and entertaining tale.”

  — San Francisco Chronicle

• “Cohen waxes almost Kiplingesque as he celebrates the man and his myrmidons.”

  — New York Times

• “Cohen’s narrative has considerable charm, whether pondering Zemurray’s Jewish identity or claiming him as a man ‘best understood as a last player in the drama of Manifest Destiny.’”

  — The New Yorker

• “Rich Cohen books constitute a genre unto themselves: pungent, breezy, vividly written psychodramas.”

  — New York Times Book Review

• “Zemurray exemplified both the best and worst of American capitalism. His saga provides plenty of food for thought next time you grab one off the bunch.”

  — Entertainment Weekly

• “There’s a lot to learn about the seedier side of the ‘smile of nature’ in this witty tale of the fruit peddler-turned-mogul.”

  — Smithsonian Magazine

• “A beautifully written homage to a man whose pioneering life mirrors so much of America’s beauty and beastliness. The life of Sam the Banana Man, in Cohen’s eloquent hands, is as nourishing and odd as the bendy yellow berry that made him great.”

  — The Times (London)

• “Absorbing, nimble and unapologetically affectionate…Mr. Cohen is a wonderfully visceral storyteller…it’s a magnificent, crazy story, engagingly told.”

  — New York Observer

• “Masterful and elegantly written…A cautionary tale for the ages.”

  — Christian Science Monitor

• “This is a great yarn, the events and personalities leaping off the page.”

  — Seattle Times

• “This history-embedded, anecdote-rich biography of Sam Zemurray, the bigger-than-life figure behind United Fruit Company at its height of power, is a balls-to-the-wall, panoramic, rocket ride through an acid bath, featuring unbelievable-but-true tales of power-grabbing, ambition, folly, passion, commerce, politics, artistry, and savagery: daydream and nightmare together…Cohen gives us this awesome story with a novelist’s canny eye for details and pacing—he injects learned disquisitions that are easy to digest whenever necessary—and a fair share of reflection and commentary and psychologizing without undue editorializing or finger-pointing.”

  — Barnes & Noble