Archive - November 11, 2011

Thirty years ago P.F. Kluge (Micronesia 1967-69) published a novel entitled Eddie and the Cruisers about a New Jersey rock band. The book was turned into a cult movie. (Kluge also wrote the WSJ article(s) that were the basis of  the movie Dog Day Afternoon.) Cruisers was (is) a terrific book, published by Viking in 1980. Now comes another ‘rock band’ novel by an RPCV! This one is the first novel by  Tyler McMahon (El Salvador 1999-02) who served in Palo Grande, in the Rosario de Mora municipality, and who is now an Assistant Professor at Hawaii Pacific University. His novel, How the Mistakes Were Made, was published in October by St. Martin’s Press. The story is about Laura Loss who comes of age in the hardcore punk scene of the 1980s, the jailbait bassist in her brother Anthony’s band. Now, a decade after tragedy destroyed Anthony and their iconic group, she finds herself serving coffee in Seattle. While on a reluctant . . .

Ashley Hardaway (Ukraine 2006–08) has never been able to sit still. It progressively got worse. Far away universities. Backpacking trips. Solo vacations. It wasn’t any big shock when she announced she was joining the Peace Corps – leaving for Ukraine a month after graduating from college. Afterwards, upon moving back to America, Ashley would continuously find herself saying “In Ukraine this one time…” To everyone’s great delight and/or horror she got a publishing deal for a travel guide to Ukraine — Ukraine: Discover the Real Ukraine. Traveling around the county again and writing about it would either rid her of all her thoughts regarding this country, or provide her with even more stories to torment people with at Christmas time. So far, all signs point to the latter. Ashley Hardaway now lives in Florida where she continues to write – about other things besides Ukraine. However, for our site, she wrote a piece on . . .