A Flag on the Island

In late 1964 Naipaul was asked to write an original script for an American film.^[1] He spent the next few months in Trinidad and Tobago writing a novella, "A Flag on the Island". The finished version was not to the director's liking and the film was never made.^[1] The novella is set in 1964 in a Caribbean island that is not named.^[2] The main character is an American named "Frankie" who affects the mannerisms of Frank Sinatra.^[1] Frankie has links to the island from having served there during World War II.^[3] He revisits reluctantly when his ship anchors there during a hurricane.^[3] Naipaul wilfully makes the pace of the book feverish, the narrative haphazard, the characters loud, the protagonist fickle or deceptive, and the dialogue confusing.^[3][1] Balancing the present time is Frankie's less disordered, though comfortless, memory of 20 years before.^[4] Then he had become a part of a community on the island.^[4] He had tried to help his poor friends by giving away the ample U.S. Army supplies he had.^[4] Not everyone was happy about receiving help and not everyone benefited.^[4] Frankie was left chastened about finding tidy solutions to the island's social problems.^[4] This theme, indirectly developed in the story, is one to which Naipaul would return.

• Dooley, Gillian (2006), V.S. Naipaul, Man and Writer, University of South Carolina Press, ISBN 978-1-57003-587-6, retrieved 30 September 2013
• French, Patrick (2008), The World Is What It Is: The Authorized Biography of V. S. Naipaul, New York: Alfred Knopf, ISBN 978-0-307-27035-1, retrieved 19 September 2013
• Hayward, Helen (2002), The Enigma of V. S. Naipaul, (Warwick University Caribbean Studies), Palgrave Macmillan, ISBN 978-1-4039-0254-2
• King, Bruce (2003), V.S. Naipaul (2nd ed.), Palgrave Macmillan, ISBN 978-1-4039-0456-0

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