“The Shell Collector” opens at the kibanda (beach house) of a blind shell collector, who is cleaning limpets (a marine mollusk that clings to rocks). A water taxi arrives, bringing two overweight journalists (both named Jim) from a New York tabloid, who offer the shell collector ten thousand dollars for his story. They ask him about his childhood experience hunting caribou, about his losing his eyesight, and about the recent cures, but they do not ask about his son’s death. They ask about cone shells and the strength of their venom. They wonder how many visitors come to the shell collector’s home.

The men stay overnight and are bothered in their sleeping bags by biting red ants called siafu. Next morning the shell collector goes out to the water, led by his German shepherd, Tumaini. The collector walks quickly...