Archive - June 6, 2014

Kilometer Ninety-Nine by Tyler McMahon (El Salvador 1999-02) St. Martin’s Griffin $14.99 (paperback), $9.99 (Kindle) 344 pages 2014 Reviewed by Philip Damon (Ethiopia 1963–65) This is a gem of a book. It’s a coming of age saga that touches on visceral themes affecting numerous cultures in a disarmingly naïve narrative voice. Under the guise of a surfer’s escape fantasy gone haywire, author Tyler McMahon deftly enables his part-Hawaiian Peace Corps engineer Malia to narrate her story in such a way that it unfolds on numerous levels of situation and meaning. At one level, it’s a fictional chronicle of the El Salvador earthquakes of 2001, limning the experiences of two groups of people-the earthy class of Salvadorans, and the twenty-something PCVs living and serving among them. At another level, it’s a tale of intrigue and danger in a foreign land. And at a subtler level, Malia’s narrative breathes life to the . . .