Archive - February 2012

Don Messerschmidt (Nepal 1963–65), anthropologist and writer, has won national recognition for his recent non-fiction book, Big Dogs of Tibet and the Himalayas: A Personal Journey (Orchid Press). His book received the Dog Writers Association of America’s (DWAA) prestigious Maxwell Medallion for Excellence at their annual meeting in New York City in early February.           Big Dogs is the result of Don’s life-long love of Tibetan mastiffs and other large canines of the Himalayan regions. He first went to Nepal as a Peace Corps Volunteer in 1963, and returned later as an anthropologist. After he encountered the big dogs of the Himalayan region he began nearly a half-century of research on their place in local cultures and as livestock (yak and sheep) guardians. The book, based on his in-depth research is part memoir, part history and cultural description, and part reference book about the Tibetan mastiffs, with sections on three . . .

Soda Springs: Love, Sex and Civil Rights by Terry Marshall (Philippines 1965–68; Solomon Islands & Kiribati Co-CD 1977–80, PC Washington 1980–82) Illustrations by Chuck Asay Friesen Press 367 pages Hardcover $30.39, paperback $19.13, Kindle $7.79 December 2010 Reviewed by Tony D’Souza (Ivory Coast 2000–02, Madagascar 2002–03) IF A POLITICALLY-CORRECT, TWO-DIMENSIONAL  soap opera  featuring twenty-year-old virgins is what you’re looking for, then Terry Marshall’s novel Soda Springs: Love, Sex and Civil Rights is the book for you. One of the reasons I found the novel irksome — just as with another recent book by a former Peace Corps Country Director, J. Larry Brown and Peasants Come Last — is Marshall’s heavy-handed marketing of Soda Springs. Unlike most review books that come my way, Soda Springs was accompanied by a leaflet campaign touting the cumbersome tome as, “Soda Springs, a place you’ll never forget. A book you can’t put down. You’ll laugh. . . .

One for the Road David Mather (Chile 1968–70) Peace Corps Writers 400 pages $14.95 (paperback) 2011 Reviewed by Reilly Ridgell (Micronesia 1971–73) THERE ARE SOME 32 PEACE CORPS NOVELS listed in the Peace Corps Worldwide bibliography. I’ve now read four and written one. From that small sample, I’m beginning to detect some patterns that may hinder us Peace Corps novelists from achieving the success we dream of.  Generally speaking, the Peace Corps novels that I’ve read tend to be long on setting and short on plot. In fact, and I was guilty of this, the plot tends to be a vehicle with which to provide the reader with all kinds of information about the Peace Corps experience. Sometimes we end up with novels that read like memoirs. We are just so affected by our time in Peace Corps and how different life can be somewhere other than a US suburb that . . .

The Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) is a national association of librarians, library workers and advocates library services for teens. Each year they give out an Alex Awards for ten books written for adults that have special appeal to young adults. The winning titles are selected from the previous year’s publishing. The Alex Awards were first given annually beginning in 1998 and became an official ALA award in 2002. One of the winning books this year is The Talk-Funny Girl (Crown, July 2011) written by Roland Merullo (Micronesia 1979–80). The  novel is set in central western New Hampshire. It is the story of a seventeen-year-old girl who lives with her parents in a cabin in the woods. They belong to a cult that believes the sins of the adults are forgiven through the suffering of the children. (“Suffer the little children. . .” a Biblical verse they grossly misinterpret.) They are abusive and . . .

DURING A BRIEF PERIOD in the 1970s the Peace Corps accepted families as Volunteers. Frances and Paul Stone eagerly  made the decision to sign up for the program as a way of serving their country overseas for two years. They were among the first families to join, and were assigned to the Philippines with their four children to share their expertise in agriculture and education while keeping up with their  energetic, enthusiastic youngsters. Frances Stone’s (Philippines 1971–73) Through the Eyes of My Children: The Adventures of a Peace Corps Volunteer Family, published this month by Peace Corps Writers, is a delightful read for young adults from middle school age on up who are interested in true life adventures about young people. This is the story of a family of six who all become Peace Corps Volunteers, and it is told in the voices of the children. Daniel the oldest sees . . .

Letters From Moritz Thomsen by Christopher West Davis (Kenya 1975–78) Create Space $ 11.95 (paperback) 137 pages 2010 Review by John Coyne (Ethiopia 1962-64) WHEN YOU OPEN A BOOK and read the first paragraph that begins: One lazy spring afternoon in 1981, a high school friend from New York, Peter L., showed up at the door of my basement apartment in Washington, D.C. with a scruffy old geezer in tow. The old guy was writer Moritz Thomsen, 64 at the time, once dubbed “the greatest American writer you’ve never heard of,” who was making a rare trip north from his self-imposed exile in Ecuador to visit his literary friends and agent in New York, and take the train down here to D.C. to attend a lecture by another of his friends, Paul Theroux, at the Library of  Congress. Well, you know you are dealing with a real writer. Christopher West Davis is . . .

A Writer Writes Whenever I want to annoy Peace Corps writers I tell them that P.F. Kluge Micronesia (1969-70) is the smartest writer to serve as a PCV. That gets them. They, of course, if they know anything of Kluge’s work, can’t really dismiss my claim. Paul Frederick Kluge has had a long and illustrious career as a novelist, academic, travel writer, journalist and lecturer. Not to list all of his lengthy CV, (which runs a full five pages) let just note a few of his many accomplishments. Early in his career, when he was a young editor at Life magazine, he wrote a story for them that became the film, Dog Day Afternoon. He next wrote a novel that became the 1983 film of the same name, Eddie and the Cruisers. In 1992 he wrote his “Peace Corps” memoir, The Edge of Paradise: America in Micronesia, published by Random . . .

Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960–2010 Charles Murray (Thailand 1965–67) Crown Forum 407 pages $27.00 (hardback) 2012 Reviewed by Lawrence F. Lihosit (Honduras 1975–77) WHILE READING CHARLES MURRAY’S NEW BOOK, I thought about our recent national obsession with civil discourse and events in Oakland, California. Since it never snows in Oakland, Occupy Wall Street has been very visible there. It would have been most illustrative to seat Mr. Murray at a cloth covered table, set on a high platform overlooking the street below. A finely dressed and polite moderator could have introduced him while the author poured himself a glass of water from an imported bottle. “Charles Murray is an American libertarian, author and PhD invited here to explain that you do not have jobs because you are fat, lazy and dishonest sons and daughters of bitches.” Murray cloaks these terms in ten dollar words and phrases but . . .

Mark Brazaitis (Guatemala 1990-93) latest short-story collection, The Incurables, has just won the 2012 Richard Sullivan Prize. The collection will be published by the University of Notre Dame Press in winter/spring 2012-2013. The award also  includes a reading at the University of Notre Dame in the spring of 2013. In the judges’ words: “The competition was a difficult one-every entrant had published at least one previous collection, and nearly every entrant had won previous competitions-but Mark’s collection was a standout.” Mark’s stories in the collection have appeared in Ploughshares (The Incurables was recognized as “distinguished” in the Best American Short Stories 2009 volume). Other stories were published by The Sun, Post Road, Confrontation, Cimarron Review, and the Notre Dame Review. Congratulations, Mark!