Archive - 2015

Neighborhood Dogs by Gerald Karey (Turkey 1965-67) • POODLES, I THINK, were bred to be work dogs, although I’m uncertain what work they did. They were not intended to be primped, pampered and coiffed to within an inch of their dog lives, trimmed of most hair except for little puffs at their paws, rumps, shoulders and tails, and minced around at dog-shows like some foppish dandy at the French royal court. That’s no way to treat a dog. Adding insult to injury, recently I saw a tricked-out poodle in the neighborhood whose owner (and surely it wasn’t the dog’s decision), dyed each of those puffs of hair orange shading into purple. I was tempted to round on him (the owner, not the dog), accuse him of animal cruelty (or at least deep humiliation), and call the animal control agency and have the dog taken away. I didn’t, of course. The . . .

In the Friday, 15, 2015, issue of the WSJ writer Jennifer Maloney has a long and touching article entitled, “A Dying Writer’s Last Chapter” that is about Kent Haruf (Turkey 1965–67) and the novel he completed days before his death, Our Souls at Night. In the novel, Kent explores a highly personal story: finding love late in life. We reviewed the novel on this site several months ago. Take a look at the review by Tony D’Souza (Ivory Coast 2000–02, Madagascar 2002–03). Kent grew up in a steel-mill town in Colorado and went to Nebraska Wesleyan University in Lincoln where he (like many writers) discovered Faulkner and Hemingway. He studied English and then joined the Peace Corps. It was in Turkey that he started writing short stories and while there he applied for admission to the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. He was rejected by them. He got a job. He got . . .

To purchase any of these books from Amazon.com, click on the book cover, the bold book title, or the publishing format you would like — and Peace Corps Worldwide, an Amazon Associate, will receive a small remittance that will help support the site and the annual Peace Corps Writers awards. • Breathing the Same Air: A Peace Corps Romance by Gerry Christmas (Thailand 1973–76; Western Samoa 1976–78) Lulu April 2015 366 pages $22.99 (paperback) • Keepers Meet Questing Eyes (Poems) by John Michael Flynn (Moldova 1993-95) Leaf Garden Press July  2014 120 pages $6.08 (paperback) • Never Forgotten: Teaching in Rebellious Eritrea 1965-1967 & Returning After 35 Years by Paul E. Huntsberger (Ethiopia 1965–67) LifeRichPublishing October 2014 192 pages $14.95 (paperback) • Shocking Paris: Soutine, Chagall and the Outsiders of Montparnasse by Stanley Meisler (PC/W staff 1964-67 evaluation/research) Palgrave Macmillan April 2015 256 pages $26.00 (hard cover), $12.99 (paperback) • The . . .

Je suis Charlie. Je suis ne pas Charlie Hebdo. by Gerald Karey (Turkey 1965–67) • Until the massacre of the writers and cartoonist at the French weekly, Charlie Hebdo, I had never seen the publication, nor was I familiar with its brand of outrageous satire. Adam Gopnik wrote in the Jan. 19 issue of The New Yorker: They worked instead in a peculiarly French and savage tradition, forged in a long nineteenth-century guerrilla war between republicans and the Church and the monarchy . . .. Charlie Hebdo was — will be again, let us hope — a satirical journal of a kind these days found in France almost alone . . .. The coarser and more scabrous cartoons that marked the covers of Charlie Hebdo — and took in Jesus and Moses, along with Muhammad; angry rabbis and ranting bishops, along with imams — were the latest example of that tradition.” The magazine was . . .