Books: South American Jitters

TRANSGRESSOR IN THE TROPICS—Negley Farson—Harcourt, Brace ($2.50).

Even before he started for South America Author Negley Farson (The Way of a Transgressor) had a premonition "that that part of the world would bring me bad luck." With that superstition, plus his weariness—an understandable result of strenuously testing the rest of the world for

20 years—it is not surprising that he gives a curious impression of South America.

At Barbados, the first stop, his rhapsody over scarlet poinsettias brought a hysterically savage execration from an Englishwoman returning to exile in Colombia. Before long, tropical colors had...