Summary
Monty—perpetual pauper, horologist’s nemesis, pawn-shop Sisyphus—barters his last minutes for nickels, then parlays a sleazy Detroit lot into a one-way ticket to Puskudnick, a fever-dream monarchy where the jungle exhales diesel and drumbeats. Charged with ferrying a virginal Model T to corpulent King Obogeegee, he splutters into lion-shadowed savannas, colonial hubris strapped to the jalopy like a spare tire. Court intrigues sizzle: missionaries brandishing hymnals as shields, a debutante whose gaze could melt brass, and warriors who regard combustion engines as iron ghosts. The car morphs from status bauble to life-boat as Monty, the socialite father, and the wide-eyed daughter tear through elephant-grass, pursued by maned death and the king’s displeasure. Their escape is a Rabelaisian chase—fenders bent by claws, carburetors choking on tribal dust, and the horizon stitched with flaming torches—until the Ford, half-wrecked but unbowed, ferries them to a freighter’s gangway and a future still tethered to the hum of pistons.
Synopsis
Monty, a "stranger, who could seldom look his watch in the face" because it is so often in the pawn shop, spends more than he earns, and is desperate for a square meal. Through a series of misadventures he becomes a used car salesman, and does so well that his boss selects Monty to deliver a brand new Model T Ford that has been ordered by King Obogeegee of the south sea island nation of Puskudnick. There, Monty gets entangled with lions, rescues a wandering social up-lifter and his daughter, and escapes in the King's car before the lions and the restless natives cook his goose.
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