Book Reviews

  Driving Jesus to Little Rock by Roland Merullo (Micronesia 1979-80) Pfp Publisher 280 pages September 2021 $9.85 (Kindle); $17,85 (Paperback); $28.00 (Hardcover)   Reviewed by Patricia Taylor Edmisten (Peru 1962-64) • Eddie Valpolicella, a successful novelist, and a Roman Catholic by birth, is the protagonist in this engaging novel. Eddie is invited to do a reading gig for a Methodist group in Little Rock. It is still slush time in the Northeast and Eddie chooses a road trip over air travel because he needs time for himself and wants to experience springtime greening as he heads south. Having said goodbye to his wife and family, Eddie rumbles along, grateful for this gift of time, surprised and content that people in Little Rock are familiar with his books. A good guy, Eddie stops to pick up a hitchhiker whose skin is much darker than most New Englanders. Maybe from the . . .

  A Crow’s Wisp by Joseph Monninger (Burkina Faso 1975-77) Wood Heat Publishing 321 pages January 2021 $4.99 (Kindle); $10.99 (Paperback)   Reviewed by Steve Foehr (Ethiopia 1965-67) • The crow has been a constant in eons of history, and a continuous thread through worldwide mythologies. In the Bible, the crow symbolizes divine providence. In China and Japan, crows are divine messengers, who show love and gratitude. For the ancient Celts, Romans, and Greeks, the crow could foretell the future. In the many Native American Crow Clans– Chippewa, Hopi, Absaroka, Tlingit, Pueblo, and many more tribes—the crow culture connects the past with the present and the future. Crows have the reputation for being gossipy, disobedient, curious, cautious, a bit stubborn, and want the world the way they want it. They are a trickster, a smart aleck, feared as the souls of people who had committed suicide, and harbingers of luck, . . .

   JFK & RFK Made Me Do It:  1960–1968 by Sweet William (Peru 1964–66) Peace Corps Writers & Constitutional Capers August 2021 274 pages $25.00 (paperback); $9.99 (Kindle) Reviewed by Marnie Mueller (Ecuador 1963-65) • I didn’t know what I was getting into when Marian Haley Beil asked me to review this book. My first thought was this would be a simple retelling of the Peace Corps experience and its aftermath. But JFK and RFK Made Me Do It: 1960 to 1968 is much more than that. In this recounting,  it becomes a young man’s sentimental education, akin to Gustave Flaubert’s novel of that title, though instead of  living through the revolution of 1848 and the founding of the Second French Empire, Sweet William takes us through the revolution wrought by JFK’s presidency and RFK’s attempt to carry on the calling of his fallen brother. JFK & RFK MADE ME DO . . .

  Love in Any Language: A Memoir of a Cross-Cultural Marriage by Evelyn Kohl LaTorre (Peru 1964-66) She Writes Press 320 pages September 2021 $9.95 (Kindle); $16.95 (Paperback)   Reviewed by Mark D. Walker (Guatemala 1971-73) • I have a soft spot for books written by tough, honest women who bring an inner sense of who they are and what’s different and unusual around them. I also appreciate simply told memoirs from fellow travelers, especially Returned Peace Corps Volunteers. As I told the author, her timing couldn’t be better (the book drops later this month), since my Guatemalan wife and I are closing in on our 50th anniversary, making this an opportune time for me to appreciate, reflect and celebrate our matrimonial journey and what makes for a successful blended marriage. I’ve already reviewed the author’s most recent book, Between Inca Wall, and according to the president of the National . . .

  Elisabeth Samson, Forbidden Bride C.V. Hamilton (Suriname 1999-01) ‎Swift House Press June 2020 401 pages $17.95 (paperback), $3.99 (Kindle) Reviewed by Stephen Foehr (Ethiopia 1965-67) • Elisabeth Samson was a real person, a Free Negress. But members of her family remained in slavery, while others were bought out of enslavement, which is how Samson was born free in the 18th century Dutch colony of Suriname. The situation was ripe for drama and moral dilemma, especially with the addition of a Black/White love affair. And there is this twist: Elisabeth Samson was a rich plantation owner with hundreds of slaves, importer of luxury European goods, a Dutch colonial wannabe, whose greatest anguish was not being allowed to marry the love of her life, a white man, and that they had not conceived a child. C.V. Hamilton’s novel Elisabeth Samson, Forbidden Bride is based on Samson’s journals discovered by the author and . . .

  Letters from a Wondrous Empire: An Epistolary Memoir by Cynthia Nelson Mosca (Ethiopia 1967–69) A Peace Corps Writers Book July 2021 182 pages $14.99 (paperback), $3.99 (Kindle) Reviewed by William Hershey (Ethiopia 1968-70) • It took more than 50 years and the COVID-19 Pandemic, but Cynthia Nelson Mosca has written a memoir that captures the best of what it meant to be a Peace Corps volunteer in Ethiopia in the late 1960s. Cindy didn’t spend half a century writing the book. Her life, especially directing an ESL (English as a second language) bilingual program in Cicero, Illinois, was too full and busy for that. The book is based on letters she sent home to her family while teaching at a secondary school in Woldia, a small town in northern Ethiopia, from 1967 to 1969. Before her aunt and mother died, they gave her all the letters. Until early 2020 . . .