Archive - 2015

A Writer Writes Gerald Karey taught English in a middle school in a Turkish village from 1965 to 1967. After the Peace Corps, Karey worked as a general assignment reporter for two newspapers in New Jersey, and for a McGraw-Hill newsletter in Washington, D.C., where he covered energy and environmental issues. A collection of his essays entitled Unhinged, was published in October, 2014. • Look About You, There is So Much to See by Gerald Karey (Turkey 1965–67) . Ride the Staten Island Ferry across New York’s Upper Bay and look about you. It is one of the world’s most magnificent urban/sea-scapes. The Atlantic Ocean lies just beyond a suspension bridge spanning the Narrows between the boroughs of Brooklyn and Staten Island; the great hundred square mile Lower Bay protecting the Upper Bay from the Atlantic; 770 miles of waterfront; on land, towers of commerce and finance scrape the sky; . . .

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. • The Unspoken: The Lost Novel by Christopher Conlon (Botswana 1988-90) CreateSpace January 2015 776 pages $25.95 (paperback) • Tories and Patriots: A Novel of the American Revolution (Historical Fiction) by Martin R. Ganzglass (Somalia 1966–68) A Peace Corps Writers Book January 2015 366 pages $13.99 (paperback) • Jeju Island Rambling: Self-exile in Peace Corps, 1973–1974 by David J. Nemeth (Republic of Korea 1973–74) Digital Repository, University of Toledo, Department of Geography and Planning December 2014 227 pages Free (Click to download .pdf) • Mort(e) (fiction) by Robert Repino (Grenada 2000–02) Soho Press January 2015 368 pages $26.95 (hardcover), $12.99 . . .

For those who get Playboy “only for the fiction” here’s a story in the March issue by RPCV, Mark Jacobs (Paraquay 1978-80) entitled, “The Bull You See, the Bull You Don’t.” It is about Alice, a young American woman in Madrid, who finally figures out what she needs to do to get away from a husband who is lost in a fantasy of an acting career that isn’t going to happen. Her path to freedom goes through a bullring of sorts.

In November 1963, a bright Hawaiian morning is shattered by news of the assassination of the President. This marks the beginning of a journey to a remote Iranian village by a young American Peace Corps Volunteer who sets out with rebellious tenacity to do what is right, unaware of America’s loss of innocence — and his own. From a youthful determination to perpetuate Kennedy’s legacy, to coping with the reality of America’s faults and ambitions, to grappling with unfamiliar customs and languages, to discovering the friendship and love of Iranians, Tom Klobe discovers that being “Tom of Iran” is as fulfilling as being “American Tom.” A Young American in Iran is a tribute to the people of the village of Alang and Iran — to their love and to their goodness. It strives to capture the essence of life in a specific village and Iran in the mid-1960s. It is . . .

An East African Peace Corps Life Tales from A Muzungu by Nicholas Duncan (Uganda 2006–08) A Peace Corps Writers Book December 2014 156 pages $14.95 (paperback) Reviewed by Richard M. Grimsrud (India 1965–67) • Nicholas Duncan’s entertaining memoir of his experiences as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Uganda after 9/11 presents a fascinating picture of his host country during his service. One slight problem with the book at the outset, however, is that it is not exactly clear when during the five five-year terms of Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni (1986-96 and 2001-present) Duncan actually served. When I searched for a specific date in the book, I had to assume from the reference to Super Bowl XLV on pp. 75–76 that the author’s service dates were 2006-08, but it would have made the story more interesting to me (for reasons that should be evident at the end of this review) if . . .

Truth Poker: Stories by Mark Brazaitis Pittsburgh: Autumn House Press January 2015 180 pages $17.95 (paperback) Reviewed by Clifford Garstang (Korea 1976-77) • Mark Brazaitis’s sixth book of fiction, Truth Poker, is a collection of superb short stories divided into three themed sections. In one sense, the fictions are a continuation of his past work, as these stories, like those in his 2012 collection, The Incurables, are also tied to the fictional town of Sherman, Ohio, and the campus of Ohio Eastern University. And, as in his earlier writing, Brazaitis draws on his own Peace Corps experience by featuring Volunteers in several of the stories, including those set in Guatemala, his country of service. Beyond the Peace Corps connection and the nominal ties to an Ohio community, however, the stories here do, for the most part, feel like they are part of a unified project, and on that basis alone . . .