Author - John Coyne

  Christina Shea Christina Shea: Smuggled Author Event In the new novel Smuggled, a sweeping story that encompasses post-WWII Romania and Budapest in the 1990s, Christina Shea takes an intimate look at the human toll of political oppression. Monday July 18, 2011 7:00 PM 82nd & Broadway 2289 Broadway, New York, NY 10024, 212-362-8835

50 years of esprit de Corps Sargent Shriver, shown with the first Peace Corps volunteers, made the CIA promise never to plant spies in the Corps. (Reuters/Jfk Library) By Katharine Whittemore Globe Correspondent / July 10, 2011 A little name-dropping, and then we’ll move on. Two former New England senators were Peace Corps volunteers: Chris Dodd (Dominican Republic) and the late Paul Tsongas (Ethiopia). Other heavy-hitting ex-volunteers include Donna Shalala (Iran), secretary of health and human services under Bill Clinton, and Reed Hastings (Swaziland), founder of Netflix. And journalists have long been core to the Corps: MSNBC’s “Hardball” host Chris Matthews (Swaziland), Vanity Fair’s Maureen Orth (Colombia), and travel writer Paul Theroux (Malawi). Note: When I say “journalist,” fix on the first two syllables. For as we brook the Peace Corps’ 50th anniversary this year, realize there are now 200,000 former volunteers in our midst – and seemingly all of them kept journals. Go . . .

What Peace Corps Volunteer (before he was a PCV) met Hemingway in Spain when Ernie was writing The Dangerous Summer, the story of the rivalry of two great bullfighters–Luis-Miguel Dominguin and Antonio Ordonez? That summer in Spain this young man approached Hemingway at one of the writer’s lengthy luncheon and asked him how to ‘become’ a writer. There is actually a photograph of the encounter, (it appeared, I think, in the old LIFE magazine) taken from a second-story balcony. It is a photo looking down on Hemingway at a long table of friends of the writer, and the young guy who would, in a few years, become a Peace Corps Volunteer. Who is this PCV? Some hints: 1) He was a PCV in the 1960s; 2) A PCV in Latin America; 3) He later became a magazine writer; 4) He has a brother who was a PCV and CD for the Peace Corps; 5) He wrote a wonderful book about . . .

Reading the current issue of The New York Review of Books I spotted a long piece by Meghan O’Rourke on the new collection The New Yorker Stories by Ann Beattie. There was a photo of Ann in front of a shelf of books taken by Dominique Nabokov and it is clearly (by its disorganized self) a home book shelf. Scanning it closely to see what she might be reading, I spotted Peter Hessler’s (China 1996-98) latest book, Country Driving.  It is on a shelf of random books, with only a few title readable, Green Metropolis by  David Owen; Hatred of Capitalism by Chris Kraus and Sylvere Lotringer; and Michael Lewis’ The Big Short. There might have been other RPCV writers on Ann’s shelf, but lookikng closely, I couldn’t find any of my books. Oh, well!

Marty Ganzglass’s (Somalia 1966-68) first novel, The Orange Tree, is the fifth book published by our imprint, Peace Corps Writers. It is a story of the unlikely friendship between an elderly Jewish lady and a young Somali nurse who cares for her. Recently Marty and I exchanged questions and answers about his writing and his long association with Somalia. • Marty, where did you serve as a Peace Corps Volunteer? I went to Somalia, along with my wife Evelyn, from 1966 to 1968. I was a lawyer and worked as legal advisor to the Somali National Police Force, replacing a Ford Foundation lawyer, who coincidentally, went on to become Police Commissioner of New York City (Robert J. McGuire). My assignment was quite unusual for a PCV. You have been connected with Somali for years, in what role? My post Peace Corps service connections with Somalia run deep. When we moved to . . .

In the mail, I received a message that began: As the minutes passed, the recycled air in the fuselage became like old breath. The planeload of Americans shot nervous looks at each other. Pinpricks of sweat forming on skin, cool but quickly warming. Charlotte joked that they had been abandoned, left to suffocate on the tarmac as a message to all foreigners. They crowded around the windows to look at their new home. The skyline was made of Soviet-built apartment compounds, sooty smokestacks. They saw a man from the ground crew idling on the tarmac. The man looked up, saw their faces pressed against the portholes. They slapped the glass and called to him. He smiled, revealing rotten teeth, but made no move to assist. The temperature soared. So begins National Magazine Award finalist Christopher Howard’s second novel, Tea of Ulaanbaatar: the story of disaffected Peace Corps Volunteer Warren, who . . .

You Never Try, You Never Know: Six Year in Liberia by Ruth Jacobson (Liberia 1971-77) Court Street Press $18.95, paperback; $6.95 e-book 402 pages 2011 Reviewed by Geraldine Kennedy (Liberia 1962–64) RUTH JACOBSON AND HER HUSBAND HAROLD were in their 50s when they joined the Peace Corps in 1971. By then they were well experienced in their professions — she a nurse, he a mechanic. Their two daughters were grown. They were just the kind of people both the Peace Corps and host countries needed and valued. Well, it seems one of them was more valued than the other — we’ll get to that. You Never Try, You Never Know is a collection of letters Ruth wrote to family members, primarily to her mother, about the Jacobson’s six years in Liberia. It is a one-way correspondence to people she loved about a life she embraced. During their orientation and training . . .

A Voter’s Handbook: Effective Solutions to America’s Problems by James P. Gray (Costa Rica 1966–68) The Forum Press 200 pages $17.95 2010 Reviewed by Ken Hill (Turkey 1965-67)   A VOTER’S HANDBOOK poses solutions for a myriad of public policy issues based on the assertion that government is the central problem which can be fixed by reducing government’s span and resources. Shrink government; grow entrepreneurship; expand “choice” and go back to “American Fundamentals,” says Mr. Gray. In the process, thankfully, he poses some practical approaches to a few of today’s most vexing issues; illegal immigration, for example, and treating the mentally ill who are not institutionalized.   A lawyer and judge, Mr. Gray has spent his life in the law, wandering occasionally into politics. A Republican candidate for Congress in 1998, he later ran as a Libertarian candidate in the 2004 California Senatorial race. In 2009, Mr. Gray retired after 25 years as . . .

“I had just finished my MFA,” Christina wrote me recently. “I didn’t have a job. I was twenty-six years old, between boyfriends, and had no burning ideas for a novel. I was too old to live in my parents’ house, or so it seemed to me at the time. When I flash back, I realize I was quite conflicted about being a writer, despite what my heart had always told me. Perhaps because I was born in the JFK era, joining the Peace Corps seemed a perfect opportunity suddenly, no longer just a pipe dream. Just in making the decision to join, I felt a sense of urgency that was new to me.” Christina would go to Eastern Europe as a PCV, to Szeged, Hungary, a city close to the Romaian border. She writes that her experience over two years and subsequent years working in the region was an amazing education. . . .

Maobadi (Photographs) by Kevin Bubriski (Nepal 1975–79) Himal Books $55.00 96 pages 2011 • The Orange Tree (Novel) by Martin R. Ganzglass (Somalia 1966–68) Peace Corps Writers $14.95 421 pages May 2011 • Rogue Elephants (Peace Corps novel) by Dan Grossman (Niger 1992–94) Lulu $22.98 299 pages 2010 • Soft Corps (Peace Corps poems) by Dan Grossman (Niger 1992–94) Lulu $11.95 71 pages 2010 • Feather: The Evolution of a Natural Miracle by Thor Hanson (Uganda 1993–95) Basic Books $25.99 338 pages 2011 • Years On: And Other Travel Essays by Lawrence F. Lihosit (Honduras 1975–77) iUniverse $18.95 211 pages 2011 • Soda Springs: Love, Sex and Civil Rights by Terry Marshall (Philippines 1965-68) Friesen Press Hardback $28.99; Paper $19.13; Kindle, $7.79 363 pages 2010 • Souled Out: A Memoir of War and Inner Peace by Michael S. Orban (Gabon 1976–78) Minute Man Press $17.00 200 pages February 2011 • . . .

Footprints in the Mud: A Peace Corps Volunteer’s 40+ Years of Ties to Thailand by Michael R. MacLeod (Thailand 1964–68) Third Place Press 296 pages $16.95 (to purchase contact: mikermacleod@comcast.net 2011 Reviewed by Lawrence F. Lihosit (Honduras 1975–77) THIS IS AN EXCELLENT BRIDGE between the original Peace Corps and a changing institution. Today, as the Peace Corps reevaluates itself, it is also a guiding handrail while crossing the fast moving river of doubt. The author served in Thailand from 1964 until 1968, entering months after JFK’s death and leaving months after the deaths of MLK and RFK. This was not just a tumultuous time at home with hundreds of cities in flames each summer, it was also a time of war abroad — very near MacLeod’s stilted wooden home in a far-off village. Originally, Peace Corps Volunteers were trained in the U.S. and shipped abroad to serve, much like the . . .