Despite knowing this story will end badly, we become attached to Barstow and her cronies. I blame Bohjalian. Through his bloody, often shocking tangle of twists and turns, he weaves life stories with such dexterity, it’s impossible not to care how they end (or continue, as the case may be). I am an animal loving vegan who hates hunting, hot weather and the company of spoiled elites. But there I was, breathlessly following these people like the hyenas stalking – .
No no. Let’s not spoil it for you.
Born to Broadway musical producers Roman and Glenda Stepanov, Katie Barstow made her debut at age 12. Critics fainted, but she wanted to escape her monstrous parents. Growing up, she changed her last name to Barstow and left the family business to become a Hollywood screen star, staying at least three time zones away from them.
Her publicist, Reggie Stout, sums up her appeal: “Katie Barstow was who she was, not just because she could act and the camera loved her (though both were true), but because she had an indefinable but almost physical peculiarity, the quintessence of dreams: a quality that transcends her beauty and her brain. It was an aura: she was damaged. You could feel it, you could feel it, you could see it.”
For Benjamin, a local doorman and guest contact, the movie star is a welcome contrast to most white foreigners on safari. On the first night, when her waterproof canvas bathtub leaks and the floor of her tent becomes soaked, Barstow shrugs and apologizes; she knows that Benjamin and his colleagues will have to boil more water.
“Over the years, he had seen other customers who would have become enraged,” Bohjalian writes. “They had promised so much and spent so much and came out of such a privilege that they managed to forget where they were: a world where a group of trained men created civilization in a small place for one night, and then broke it all down, with all that was left were tire tracks, trampled grass, a fire pit (or two), and the bones of the game they had cooked. Benjamin had had women scold him for breaking their nails and men had scolded him for missing the right bourbon in the diner. Their behavior was always embarrassing and sometimes dangerous.”