When we first examine the novels The Poor Christ of Bomba and Houseboy, we are immediately struck by their similarities. Both books are narrated in the first person in the form of diaries written by young men who are in the service of white religious leaders. Both books also deal with the themes of corruption, exploitation, and sexual misconduct in colonial environments. Yet the novels are not mere carbon copies, and there are significant differences between them. Let's look at some of those differences.

For one thing, the religious leader that the main character in Houseboy serves seems to be at least in part a good man. Toundi works for Father Gilbert, and while Father Gilbert does tend to be rather patronizing toward the natives, he seems to be a fairer and more devout man than Father Drumont, whom Denis serves in The Poor Christ of Bomba. Father Drumont is really quite nasty, and after the scandal breaks, he simply leaves to let people fend for themselves. Father Gilbert is killed in a motorcycle accident and exits the story fairly early on; his successor, however, is more like Father Drumont, as is the Commandant.

Further, in Houseboy, the sexual scandal is largely limited to the wife of the Commandant (Madame) who engages in an affair with prison director Moreau and makes Toundi act as a go-between, introducing the moral question of participation into the mix. In The Poor Christ of Bomba, the scandal expands beyond Catherine and Zacharia to the whole sixa, the training home for young women that has become little more than a house of prostitution. Both of these books also show that the natives are subject to abuse and exploitation, but The Poor Christ of Bomba makes this point more broadly by focusing on the Talas as a whole and their resistance to Christianity (even though they seem to accept it on the surface).

Finally, in The Poor Christ of Bomba, Denis leaves the countryside to work for a Greek merchant in a bigger town. In Houseboy, Toundi dies after a beating, for he is made a scapegoat in the affair between Madame and Moreau. He has no chance to start over.