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The title of his new book, “At the Foot of The Southern Cross, an American Offshore in The Cayman Islands,” is an allegory. The reader may, or may not, discover the true meaning of the title. The book itself is true, or as true as Gentry’s mind can reconstruct it.
It is rightly called a memoir, but it also is an anthology of history, frustration, money and adventure in a foreign country. Naive Mr. Gentry was unprepared for the reception he received in The Cayman Islands. A majority of the Caymanian people loved all Americans. Some of the Brits, not all, were polite at first, but often condescending. They were annoyed that an American was the editor and publisher of the country’s only newspaper.
In the beginning, Dick did not know what he was doing. He was battered like a pebble in an empty Coke bottle bouncing against the Iron Shore. But he never sank.
One early critic of his book told him he was trying to write another “Lord Jim,” he said. “That’s not the case at all. I couldn’t do that if I tried. I’m no Joseph Conrad. I’m Dick Gentry. Although, ‘Lord Jim’ and ‘Southern Cross’ are both based on historical events...”
Jim came ashore, struggled, and saved the natives; Dick came ashore and the natives struggled to send him back from whence he came...