Archive - September 29, 2019

  Welcome to the Writer’s Life by Paulette Perhach (Paraguay 2008–10) Sasquatch Books Publisher 320 pages $ 18.95 2018     INTRODUCTION Hello there. On the day that changed me from someone who wanted to be a writer to someone working to be a writer, I was a twenty- six-year-old Peace Corps volunteer in the capital of Paraguay, on a swamp-hot bus packed mostly with office workers on their way home. The bus squealed to a stop, and the driver opened the door. Since so many of the stories, both hilarious and traumatizing, that I told my family and friends back home started with someone getting on the bus, I’d developed a reflex to watch that door, waiting for whoever or whatever was next. A young woman, maybe twenty, hopped on and stood at the front, smiling. She greeted us hello in Guaraní, not with the usual booming voice of . . .

THE WEEKEND INTERVIEW How Mexicans See the U.S. and Trump The border fence is ‘a visible example of national paranoia,’ author Paul Theroux says. Yet he thinks Americans are right to be afraid. By Tunku Varadarajan Sept. 27, 2019 5:58 pm ET  ILLUSTRATION: KEN FALLIN Sandwich, Mass. If Paul Theroux’s new book on Mexico is a commercial success, he’ll have Donald Trump to thank for it. But the initial inspiration came from a young man who worked in a doctor’s office. In 2014 Mr. Theroux visited a clinic in this Cape Cod town, where he spends his summers. The assistant who registered him made an instant and irksome impression. “ ‘Take a seat, Paul,” Mr. Theroux quotes him. “ ‘Fill in these forms, Paul. The doctor will see you shortly, Paul.’ It was Paul, Paul, Paul.” Mr. Theroux, 78, recalls the incident with somewhat startling venom: “I’m in my 70s. I said to myself: . . .