Reviewed by: Gary Sorkin, Pacific Book Review
Title: Panama Sushi Hit
The three words used in the title, “Panama Sushi Hit,” make for a fascinating true story; a narrative about friendship, betrayal, doing business abroad and sushi, by James D. Evans as he describes a part of his life that most people couldn’t even imagine in their wildest dreams. He bought, along with some of his friends, a combined brothel and strip club in Panama.
From the comfort of a Southern California “lunch group” that meets every Wednesday at their favorite sushi bar in Long Beach, the group began traveling to South America as an escape from their frustration with the scene. of dating in los angeles On multiple and frequent trips to Costa Rica and Panama, they discover the social acceptability of prostitution in South America as legal and in many stimulating ways. So Jim, our trusty narrator, takes the reader on a heartfelt and rather descriptive adventure assimilating carnal knowledge among the local working girls. Caution: this part of the book is a bit shocking; written from a male point of view for a male audience or an extremely liberated female reader, but definitely not for the crowd that goes to church for Sunday tea. I would rate this as rated R for this very short portion, although there is a valid reason for Jim’s heartfelt writing. He explained in his book that it is necessary to provide a real understanding of what happens during those paid sexual encounters. What impressed me the most is when Jim meets Vivian, a bride-to-be, he doesn’t reveal anything ungentlemanly about their relationship, thus the shock value of the previous lustful episodes was for that sole purpose: shock.
The next third of the book focuses on what Donald Trump would call “The Foreign Apprentice”: having 3 men, drinking friends from the US, not speaking Spanish, somehow doing business together as partners buying a penthouse condo and renovating a strip club. brother in Panama City. The pages “flipped by” as this became such an interesting turn in history with legitimate observations, decisions, frustrations, and success stories in accomplishing a herculean task of daunting proportions. As Donald Trump would say, “You’re fired!” to the antics of Angus, a dysfunctional obese alcoholic with the gift of eloquence, Jim would chalk it up to “friendship” and overlook too many “red flags.”
The best part of any true story is that it is often better than fiction, as James D. Evans recounts episodes and antidotes to unimaginable circumstances. He ardently tries to bring some suspense to the story with the possibility of being stopped at customs, arrested, and incarcerated in a Panamanian jail, however, due to the honest and unassuming directness of his narration, some of the suspense is lost. Let’s face it, it’s not a James Bond novel or a Tom Cruise movie. However, the reader is drawn into his innermost thoughts and reasoning, living vicariously through Jim’s exploits, one gains first-hand knowledge only a few experience.
Like any good book, it has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Jim ends with some of the lessons he learned. I felt his “pain from him” for the betrayal of what he believed to be his closest friends. Forgiveness felt like a hard emotion to muster for him; easy to say but almost impossible to believe. An insult launched from a verbal spurt when Angus called him “mentally ill” which Jim later took seriously; agreeing with the fact that he needed to be crazy to have done what he did against his better judgment.
Shocking at times like lightning, James D. Evans learns a lesson that pontificates all who say “Panama Sushi Goup”; and it is that friendship, like sushi, has a freshness date that can expire causing nauseating consequences.