Book Reviews – Page 24 – Peace Corps Worldwide

Review — FROM THE SAN JOAQUIN by Barry Kitterman (Belize)

Apr 28 2011

From the San Joaquin: Stories by Barry Kitterman (Belize 1976–78) Southern Methodist University Press $23.95 208 pages 2011 Reviewed by Marnie Mueller (Ecuador 1963–65) IN ANTICIPATION OF WRITING THIS REVIEW I read Barry Kitterman’s award winning debut novel, The Baker’s Boy (The Maria Thomas Award for Fiction), which I admired greatly, but which didn’t prepare me for the muscular, thoroughly authentic voice of From the San Joaquin. From the San Joaquin has been compared to Winesburg, Ohio; it’s more a novel in form than a collection of short stories as well as a decidedly American story of small town life, but unlike Winesburg it never flirts with the grotesque, nor panders to notions of quaintness. Covering a forty year span, Kitterman subtly weaves the lives of half a dozen main characters and a dozen subsidiary ones into a complex, multileveled narrative. It’s set in Ivanhoe, California in Tulare County, the . . .

Review — A PEACE CORPS MEMOIR by Terry Sack (Bolivia 1963–65)

Aug 04 2010

Reviewer Leita Kaldi Davis worked for the United Nations and UNESCO, for Tufts’ Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and Harvard University. She worked with Roma (Gypsies) for fifteen years, became a Peace Corps Volunteer in Senegal at the age of 55, then went to work for the Albert Schweitzer Hospital in Haiti for five years. She retired in Florida in 2002. She has written a memoir of Senegal, Roller Skating in the Desert, and is working on a memoir of Haiti. • A Peace Corps Memoir: Answering JFK’s Call by Terry Sack (Bolivia 1963–65; PC/Washington 1968–69) Createspace $15.95 449 pages 2010 Reviewed by Leita Kaldi Davis (Senegal 1993-96) WHEN I FIRST SAW the title, A Peace Corps Memoir: Answering JFK’s Call, I expected a dry narrative of a typical Peace Corps experience, but the author’s unique stories and clear writing style surprised and delighted me. And how could I . . .

Review — Whispering Campaign by Larry Lihosit (Honduas 1975-77)

Dec 13 2009

Whispering Campaign: Stories from Mesoamerica by Lawrence F. Lihosit (Honduras 1975-77) iUniverse, Inc. $11.95 120 pages November, 2009 Reviewed by Allen W. Fletcher (Senegal 1969-71) • Lawrence Lihosit is an inveterate self-publisher, has served us up a pungent and tasty array of stories in his Whispering Campaign – Stories from Mesoamerica. They have the allure of Mexican street food — rough and honest and earthy. They are laced with the complementary spices of cross-cultural compassion and gringo guilt; and they go directly to the gut. Lihosit spent a total of seven and a half years in Mexico and Central America, and from the feel of it, it was not a touristic enterprise. By his own account he grew close enough to the people of the several countries in which he lived to tip toe on the dangerous side of local politics. There is no question where his feelings fall with . . .

Review: RPCV Kirsten Johnson’s novel Footsteps

Oct 06 2009

Patricia Taylor Edmisten, who served in the Peace Corps in Peru from 1962 to 1964, is an author herself. She has published Nicaragua Divided: La Prensa, Chamorro Legacy, and Wild Women with Tender Hearts, which was the winner of the 2007 Peace Corps Writers’ Award for poetry. Patricia reviews Kirsten Johnson’s novel Footsteps about life in Kenya. • Footsteps by Kirsten Johnson (Kenya 1982–84) Plain View Press July 2009 248 pages $18.95 Reviewed by Patricia Taylor Edmisten (Peru 1962–64) It’s easy to forget that Footsteps is a novel. Buoyed by an enormous heart, Kirsten Johnson shares with her readers the injustice and inequities she witnessed while serving as a Peace Corps volunteer in Kenya in 1982. In particular, she sheds light on the unique burdens borne by girls and women: lack of education; pregnancies before reproductive organs mature; the absence of skilled midwives; unsanitary birthing conditions; too little breast milk . . .

Review: ROCK WORN BY WATER by Florence Chard Dacey

Sep 30 2009

Ecuador RPCV Marnie Mueller is the author of Green Fires, which won the 1995 Maria Thomas Fiction Award and an American Book Award. Her other novels are The Climate of the Country and My Mother’s Island. The latter has been optioned for a feature film, the screenplay of which, she has signed on to write. She has recently completed a new novel, Don’t Think Twice. Here she reviews: Rock Worn By Water by Florence Chard Dacey (Nigeria 1963–65) Austin: Plain View Press March 2009 77 pages $14.20 Reviewed by Marnie Mueller (Ecuador 1963–65) Florence Chard Dacey had endeared herself to me before I even opened her book for review. Take note, fellow writers! Her accompanying letter was exemplary in its restraint, simply stating the facts of publication (date, price, and ISBN) and that she as a former volunteer would like her collection to be listed and considered for review . . .

Review: TWO YEARS IN POLAND by Lawrence Biddall (Poland)

Aug 24 2009

• Two Years in Poland, and Other Stories: A Sixty-Seven-Year-Old Grandfather Joins the Peace Corps and Looks Back on His Life by Lawrence Brane Siddall (1997–99) Pelham Springs Press 2008 255 pages $16.95 Reviewed by David Gurr (Ethiopia 1962–64) • In Poland, Lawrence Brane Siddall taught English in the town of Swidnica, pronounced as shvid-NEET-sa, according to the author. He was the only PCV assigned to that city of 65,000 in southwest Poland, and replaced a Volunteer who had taught English the previous two years at the secondary school to which he was assigned. Parts I and III of his book are devoted to his experience in Swidnica, travel to major cities in Poland, one of them as part of his in-service training, as well as a six-week summer project organized by another Volunteer followed by a vacation in Russia. Sandwiched in between these two parts is Part II, . . .

Review — GLEN by Richard Fordyce (Ghana)

Mar 03 2009

Glen: A Novel by Richard Fordyce (Ghana 1978-80) iUniverse, Inc. 2008 318 pages $18.95 (paperback) Reviewed by Lawrence F. Lihosit (Honduras, 1975-77) • The Peace Corps has no library. Even the Washington office does not have a single book shelf to treasure the work of its dedicated staff and volunteers who returned home to fulfill the Peace Corps’ third goal, to educate. There are some one thousand known examples, yet not one official collection, not even in the Library of Congress! So, buy Richard Fordyce’s historical novel while it is available. Do not wait to check out a library copy because there is no Peace Corps library. Buy it now. Don’t steal it. Like William Somerset Maugham’s Razor’s Edge, the author explores an era (1950–1980) by using a confused war veteran as the protagonist. In Maugham’s book set during an eleven year lull between world wars, the protagonist journeys . . .