Author - John Coyne

The October issue of Harper’s Magazine carries a review of Bob Shacochis (Eastern Caribbean 1975-76) novel, The Woman Who Lost Her Soul written by Tom Bissell (Uzbekistan 1996-97). This is the first time to my knowledge that we have a mano a mano between an  RPCV writer and an RPCV reviewer. (The only thing better would have been if Tony D’Souza was the referee.) I’m not sure if the editorial staff at Harper’s understand our “below the radar”  world of Peace Corps writers, but I picked up the magazine thinking: this could be good. As a writer and reviewer, and an RPCV, I am sure Bissell is aware of Shacochis’ career and has been tracking it, waiting for Bob’s next big book. And he is impressed by what Bob has produced, a novel that has been twenty years in the making. Bissell also makes a telling point (about Shacochis and . . .

Joshua Berman (Nicaragua 1998-2000) is a freelance writer, Spanish teacher, and dad, based in Boulder, Colorado. He is the author of four Avalon Travel guidebooks; his articles have appeared in The New York Times, USA Today, Yoga Journal, and National Geographic Traveler; and he has a monthly column in the Denver Post. Josh also won the Peace Corps Writers Book Award for his travel book on Nicaragua in 2006. He is married to an RPCV, Sutay Kunda Berman (Gambia 1996-98). His first narrative travel book, Crocodile Love, is a collection of tales from his honeymoon to Pakistan, India, Ghana, and The Gambia. In 2005, the married couple quit everything and flew to Pakistan to begin an open-ended trip together. They didn’t need wedding gifts, they needed shared experiences, preferably toilsome, scary, and rewarding ones in strange, faraway places. Crocodile Love: Tales From An Extended Honeymoon is the story of that journey. . . .

On Sunday, September 22, 2013, from 2:00 pm to 4: pm, RPCV writer, Clifford Garstang will be reading at the Writer’s Center in Bethesda, Maryland. Garstang’s novel, What the Zhang Boys Know, has been named a finalist for the 2013 Library of VirginiaClifford GarstangAward in Fiction. (The other finalists are The Right-hand Shore by Christopher Tilghman and The Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers.) Garstang’s award-winning collection of linked short stories, In an Uncharted Country, was published by Press 53 in 2009. This book won the 2010 Peace Corps Writers Maria Thomas Fiction Award. His work has appeared in Bellevue Literary Review, Blackbird, Virginia Quarterly Review, Shenandoah, Cream City Review, Tampa Review, Los Angeles Review, and elsewhere and has received Distinguished Mention in the Best American Series. He is the editor of Prime Number Magazine and currently lives in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. The Writer’s Center 4508 Walsh Street Bethesda, . . .

[This email comes for a New York City RPCV writer. This woman is always in the know!] Dear John, Having not read Norm Rush’s book I don’t know how on target the New York Times review is, but what I do know and have learned over the years is that Michiko Kakutani is a very unreliable reviewer. She lauds books that are totally middle-brow and then savages others that are may be flawed in certain ways, but mostly flawed because the author is reaching for a difficult effect. She also tends to overpraise an author early in his or her career and demolish him or her if she feels they’ve failed her in some way. And I use the reference to “her” advisedly.  It seems to be a deeply personal thing with her. I’ve heard she used to be a groupy following, I think, Paul Simon, in her younger days. . . .

The September 26, 2013, issue of The New York Review of Books has a long review of Subtle Bodies by Norm Rush (Botswana 1978-83 ) written by Francine Prose. Prose goes back over Rush’s literary history, his three novels that are set in Botswana, written in the years after Norm and his wife, Elsa, were co-directors in South Africa and then she focuses on where Rush is today. This novel is not set in Botswana. Published by Knopf this month, Subtle Bodies, takes place in New York’s Hudson Valley where Norm and Elsa have lived since (and before) the Peace Corps in Africa. Unlike Michiko Kakutani’s The New York Times review (September 17, 2013), novelist and critic Francine Prose finds much to appreciate in Norm’s new book. In her review, Prose makes the point that Rush writes novels for adults….”Rush endows his fictional creations with so much intelligence, complexity, and . . .

September 16, 2013 Gazing Into Their Past Through Their Bellybuttons By MICHIKO KAKUTANI SUBTLE BODIES By Norman Rush 236 pages. Alfred A. Knopf. $26.95. The premise of this tiresome new novel by the critically acclaimed author Norman Rush sounds as if it had been lifted straight from “The Big Chill”: a group of now middle-aged college friends reunite to commemorate the death of one of their own. The result not only lacks that movie’s humor and groovy soundtrack but is also an eye-rollingly awful read. The novel’s preening, self-absorbed characters natter on endlessly about themselves in exchanges that sound more like outtakes from a dolorous group therapy session than like real conversations among longtime friends. Its title, “Subtle Bodies” – which refers to people’s “true interior selves,” whatever that means – is a perfect predictor of the novel’s solipsistic tone. Readers given to writing comments in their books are likely . . .

The Woman Who Lost Her Soul by Bob Shacochis (Eastern Caribbean 1975–76) Atlantic Monthly Press $28.00 713 pages 2013 Reviewed by Tony D’Souza (Ivory Coast 2000-02, Madagascar 2002-03) WITH THE WIDELY HERALDED release of his first novel since 1993’s National Book Award Finalist Swimming in the Volcano, Bob Shacochis has managed to make dead one of the livelier discussion points that’s unified Peace Corps writers for the better part of the past two decades: “What’s up with Bob, anyone seen him?” “One assumes he’s still in New Mexico, working on that crazy, alleged book.” The crazy, alleged book long ago became mythological. “I heard it’s about a zombie in Haiti.” “Haiti? I heard it was set in Croatia.” It’s been widely assumed Shacochis had waded into a literary quagmire, drowned himself in a stubborn attempt at an overreaching Ur text, a quixotic journey to write the whole history of some . . .

The Peace Corps Writers Award for Best Poetry Book was first presented in 1997. The winner for Peace Corps Writers 2013 Best Book of Poetry published in 2012 is The Land of the Four Rivers by Matthew A. Hamilton (Armenia 2006–08, Philippines 2008–10) published by Cervena Barva Press in 2012. Matthew Hamilton was a Legislative Assistant on Capital Hill and, prior to that, a Benedictine Monk. He is a 1999 graduate of Belmont Abbey College with a Bachelors of Arts degree in History and has a MFA from Fairfield University. He is a poetry reader for the online magazine, Mason’s Road and Drunken Boat. He was nominated for a 2013 Pushcart Prize and has published in A-Minor Magazine, Atticus Review, Boston Literary Magazine, Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, Noctua Review. In his review of this collection for our site, Mark B Brazaitis (Guatemala 1991–93) wrote: Most of the poems in . . .

AWARD for Best Travel Book was first presented in 2001. Winner of the 2013 Best Travel Book is African Son by William J. Hemminger (Senegal 1973-75) published by University Press of America in 2012. William J. Hemminger is chair of the English Department and teaches English and French at University of Evansville in southern Indiana. He is also a poet, translator, musician, composer, and gardener. After graduating from Columbia University, he served in Senegal as a Peace Corps volunteer. Hemminger earned a Ph.D. in 1988 and since then has worked in Madagascar and Cameroon under the auspices of the Fulbright Program. Reviewers of this book write: African Son is one of the best travelogues written about African. Its fifteen insightful, well-written, and well-organized essays tackle important social, cultural, and philosophical issues such as social inequities, cultural differences, man and nature, death, and spirituality. The book skillfully blends honesty and realism: . . .