W. B. Garvey

Author of
Panama Fever: Digging Down Gold Mountain

W. B. Garvey’s thrilling novel, Panama Fever: Digging Down Gold Mountain brings to life the untold stories of the men and women who left their West Indian homes and loved ones to fulfill the dream of building the Panama Canal. Published by Jonkro Books, Panama Fever: Digging Down Gold Mountain narrates the adventures of two young Jamaicans who seek glory by joining the French in their valiant but vain attempt to build the canal during the 1880s. The two protagonists, Thomas Judah and Byron, find themselves caught up in a cycle of political corruption, murderous insurrection, natural disaster, and deadly disease. A story of love, ambition and corruption that explores the antagonisms of class, nationality, race, and gender, Panama Fever brings to life the experiences and tragedies of those who worked on the monumental Panama Canal project.

What led me to write
Panama Fever: Digging Down Gold Mountain

Although the discovery that my grandfather, a man I knew little of and had never met, had been a railroad engineer in Panama was the catalyst which led me to write Panama Fever: Digging Down Gold Mountain, it was Marcus Garvey’s widow, Amy Jacques Garvey who planted the seeds of interest in the heroic Jamaicans who over multiple decades helped to build and maintain the historic Panama Canal.

She was adamant that although it took French brains and American money to conceive the Panama Canal, it was West Indian sweat and blood that built it, something which the world at that time refused to acknowledge. Looking back, I suppose Panama Fever is in some small way my thank you to dear Amy Jacques for those inspiring afternoon teas.

Before I learned about my grandfather’s work in Panama I had assumed that the Jamaicans working on the canal had all been common laborers. As I would discover, the symbiotic tie between the isthmus and Jamaica dated from the 1840’s when the California Gold Rush spurred North American investors to build the Panama Railroad. Jamaica, being close by and inhabited by underemployed English speakers, became a handy source of cheap labor. By the time the French began their failed canal effort, there was a ready pool of workers to enlist, not only as diggers but also as stenographers, cooks, carpenters, mechanics and engineers.

W.B. Garvey signing his book in Jamaica

I was a scruffy schoolboy living in Kingston when the refined Mrs. Garvey used to invite me for tea. She had recently finished Garvey and Garveyism, her loving biography of her distinguished husband and her memories of his work and their dramatic life together were like vivid crystal. She was clearly pleased by my eagerness to hear stories about my famous relative and seemed determined that I grasp both the essence and the complexities of her great man. I remember her stressing that it was the abuse of his Jamaican countrymen working in Panama that convinced Marcus Garvey to start the Black nationalist movement that would finally “destroy the old slave mentality.” I originally wrote Panama Fever as a saga covering both the French and American periods, with different, although related, main characters in each period. I later decided that the story could be better told as two linked novels, each of which also stands alone as a complete story. The second novel, coming soon, focuses on a Jamaican engineer and his wife during the American period of canal construction, when Jim Crow laws were introduced to the Canal Zone.

Buy Panama Fever
	Hardcover $22.00	Softcover $12.95