SOURCE: "Ambushed in the Cacao Groves," in The New York Times Book Review, February 7, 1988, pp. 3, 37.

In the following review, West lauds Amado's Showdown.

The only calendar in Tocaia Grande—it was a New Year's gift—hangs outside the dry-cacao storehouse, more a toy borrowed from the cradle of time than anything practical. It pictures a mountain snowscape and a big hairy dog under whose chin hangs a small cask. From the print there dangles a booklet of numbered leaves, a few of which old Gerino now and then peels away, mainly out of gratitude. No wonder life in this verdant riverside shantytown among the cacao groves of South Bahia remains "permanently behind time," thwarting not only those who need to clock the rains and the harvests along the Rio das Cobras, but also Fadul the Turk who owns the canteen and wants to collect punctually on his loans...