Archive - September 18, 2012

Peter Lefcourt (Togo 1962-64) takes on the French in his New Novel! If you love to hate the French and/or hate to love show business, this just may be the book for you:  Five Americans on the loose at the Cannes Film Festival. Merde happens. Big time.  The French Ministry of Culture tried unsuccessfully to get a restraining order against the publication of this book.  Now finally available for your Kindle or iPad is Le Jet Lag! What the book is about: As I wrote, five Americans on the loose at the Cannes Film Festival: the ambitious intern resolved to sleep her way to the bottom; the actor who winds up spending seven nights in different beds; the publicist whose job is to make sure the studio’s film does not win an award; the gay head of publicity involuntarily channeling Golda Meir; and, back for an encore (after The Deal . . .

Tubob: Two Years in West Africa with the Peace Corps by Mary E. Trimble (Gambia 1979-81) ShelterGraphics $15.95 320 pages 2012 Reviewed by Barbara E. Joe (Honduras 2000-03) Just what does “Tubob” in this book’s title mean? Author Mary Trimble and her husband Bruce, Volunteers sent to The Gambia in 1979, discovered it means stranger or white person. But they didn’t remain strangers for long, though pregnant women shielded their eyes from them to prevent the birth of albino babies. The two were soon given Gambian names; Mary’s was Mariama. They quickly became valued members of their community, she working in health, he in digging wells. By planting a garden and raising chickens themselves, they showed local people how to augment their diet, also debunking a belief that eating eggs causes stupidity. Reportedly newlyweds, I first envisioned them as a young couple, only later learning they were already in their . . .