Peace Corps writers

BOOK REVIEW Nine out of ten “Peace Corps Books” are self-published. The reason — while the Peace Corps experience is life-changing and many RPCVs want everyone to know about their service, in most cases no commercial, small or academic presses are interested in publishing their stories. The good news is that because of self-publishing RPCVs can take matters into their own hands. Here’s one woman’s story of being a PCV in South Africa. Lasso the World: A Western Writer’s Tales of Folks Around the Globe By Starley Talbott (South Africa 2001) Plainstar Press 2004 Reviewed by Lawrence F. Lihosit (Honduras, 1975–77) Lasso the World is a clearly written series of time resilient vignettes covering four of the seven continents. Written over a quarter century as newspaper and magazine articles, the compilation reads fresh like the desert in bloom. Starley (Anderson) Talbott, self-taught journalist, has stitched together a beautiful comforter for . . .

The Last Days of Old Beijing: Life in the Vanishing Backstreets of a City Transformed by Michael Meyer (China 1995–97) is the one of three books cited by Richard Bernstein, a former Time Magazine correspondent in China, in a long essay/review entitled “The Death and Life of a Great Chinese City” in The New York Review of Books, March 26, 2009 issue. After his Peace Corps tour, Mike Meyer spent three years living in a single room of an old courtyard house, using a public toilet and a public bath and out of this has come his fascinating portrait of life in a narrow backstreet of Beijing that vanished to make way for the Olympics Games. Bernstein makes the point that Michael is “no sentimentalist or preservationist ideologue. He writes, “It can’t be forgotten that life is a lot better for most people in the new Beijing, but then he . . .

BOOK REVIEW Murderers in Mausoleums: Riding the Back Roads of Empire Between Moscow and Beijing by Jeffrey Tayler (Morocco 1988-90; PC/Staff Poland 1992, Uzbekistan 1992-93) Houghton Mifflin 2009 Reviewed by Michael Meyer (China 1995-97) As SARS crippled Beijing in 2003, a handful of fellow former Peace Corps China volunteers and I waited out the weeks with bad red wine and the fear that comes from being thirty and far from home, uncertain how to continue freelance writing when editors stopped buying stories that were not about the virus and its cover-up. The Moscow-based Atlantic correspondent Jeffrey Tayler provided unexpected succor then; we passed around his forward to Facing the Congo, a small masterpiece of an essay on existential angst and the desire to achieve something as a writer by age thirty-three — “the age of Christ!” according to the Russian saying. He accepted the challenge, and then some, setting off in . . .

BOOK REVIEW Dominic Cibrario (Nepal 1962-64) is one of the many RPCVs who are publishing their novels as PODs. He sent it to me a few months ago and I’m happy to be able to showcase Tucker Clark who also served in Nepal, review the novel about farm life in Wisconsin. Secrets of the Family Farm by Dominic Cibrario (Nepal 1962-64) Booksurge, 2008 Reviewed by W. Tucker Clark (Nepal 1967-70) It was puzzling to me why John Coyne asked me to review this book. It was written by someone I had never heard of from the first Peace Corps Volunteer to Nepal. I thought I was fairly knowledgeable about writers, particularly about India and the Peace Corps (thanks to this wonderful webizine), but Dominic Cibrario was new to me. I recently found myself too busy with the Presidential race to start Dominic Cibrario’s self-published paperback, but I knew I had to . . .

BOOK REVIEW Mark Brazaitis who is an award winning short story writer as well as a fine novelist also writes poetry, and here another award winning RPCV poet, Phil Dacey, writes a review of Mark’s latest collection. The Other Language: Poems by Mark Brazaitis (Guatemala, 1991–93) ABZ Poetry Press 2009 Reviewed by Philip Dacey (Nigeria 1963–65) I wish Mark Brazaitis had been chosen to present the Presidential inaugural poem instead of Elizabeth Alexander, whose lackluster effort probably won few converts to poetry and disappointed most poets I know.  Brazaitis, on the other hand, would have told a story rich in character and resplendent with language that while familiar — not straining to be poetic — nevertheless rose to the level of memorable song, precisely what was needed on January 20th.  As he writes at the very end of the book: “I don’t know her nor she me. / Today this . . .

BOOK REVIEW A few years ago Professor of Economics at George Mason University,  Carrie Meyer, went home to the Midwest and stumbled upon a cardboard box of diaries kept by her grandmother. She turned them into a history lesson, love letter, and wonderful story. Days on the Family Farm: From the Golden Age to the Great Depression by Carrie A. Meyer (Dominican Republic 1980–83) University of Minnesota Press 2007 Reviewed by M. Susan Hundt-Bergan (Ethiopia 1966-68) In 2000, Carrie Meyer’s family stumbled upon a cardboard box of diaries in their grandmother’s attic in Guilford Township, Illinois.  Most of these diaries were kept by May Lyford Davis, their grandfather’s cousin’s wife, about her life on the very farm where Carrie Meyer had grown up.  Out of these diary notations, Ms. Meyer, an economist at George Mason University, has crafted the story of May and Elmo Davis, their lives and that of . . .

BOOK REVIEW First Comes Love, then Comes Malaria:  How a Peace Corps Poster Boy Won My Heart and a Third World Adventure Changed My Life written by Eve Brown-Waite (Ecuador 1988) generated a publisher’s bidding war and an advance of six-figures. If nothing else, it proved that a Peace Corps book (other than one by Paul Theroux) could make money. It is reviewed here (before publication) by Jan Worth-Nelson (Tonga 1976–78) who didn’t get malaria in Tonga when she was a PCV, but who eventually married the man she first met as a PCV, and who wrote a great mystery novel about a murder in the Peace Corps, a tale out of Tonga, entitled, Night Blind. First Comes Love, then Comes Malaria: How a Peace Corps Poster Boy Won My Heart and a Third World Adventure Changed My Life By Eve Brown-Waite (Ecuador 1988-89) EveBrownWaite.com Broadway Books 2009 Reviewed by . . .

Ron Singer (Nigeria 1964-67) will be part of a poetry reading at the Celebration of Small Press Month and the Release of Poetic Voices Without Borders 2 on Wednesday, March 18, 2009, at 6:30 PM. It is being held at The New York Center for Independent Publishing,  20 West 44th St. (between 5th & 5th Avenues). Poetic Voices Without Borders 2, is an international anthology featuring more than 150 poets, including Philip Levine, Rita Dove, Joy Harjo, Naomi Shihab Nye and Ron Singer.  Since his Peace Corps days, Ron has written poetry, fiction, satire, journalism about Africa , and librettos for two operas. His essay-review on The Caine Prize for African Writing appeared in the Summer 2007 Georgia Review, and a second printing of his chapbook, A Voice for My Grandmother (Ten Penny Players), was issued in Fall 2007. Check Ron out at: www.ronsinger.net.

I was struck the other day when I got an email from an RPCV who wanted to know if I was the “most famous” of all the Peace Corps writer. Hello? “Hardly,” I wrote back. I’m not even on that list of writers. So, just in case people don’t know the many, many fine, award-winning writers who served in the Peace Corps, here is a list of the talented and best known of the corps of writer — and one of their books — who once served as Volunteers. And last but not least — Besides RPCVs, a number of members of the staff of the Peace Corps have written major novels and works of non-fiction. Among them: The writers from the Peace Corps also have won almost every major prize of literature, including the National Book Award (Norm Rush & Bob Shacochis); PEN/Faulkner Award (Richard Wiley); American Book Award . . .

Nominations are due for our Peace Corps Books of last year. Nominations are now being accepted by Peace Corps Writers for its awards for best books published during 2008 and written by PCVs, RPCVs, and Peace Corps staff. Do you have a favorite to nominate? Or did you write a book that you would like to have considered? Check out the categories: Please recommend your candidates for the following categories: Paul Cowan Non-Fiction Award Maria Thomas Fiction Award Award for Best Poetry Book Award for Best Travel Writing Award for Best Children’s Book And for the best short piece that best describes the Peace Corps experience, the Moritz Thomsen Peace Corps Experience Award Send in your nominations to: peacecorpsworldwide [at] gmail [dot] org

The hot Peace Corps book for Spring ’09 is by Eve Brown-Waite. She sold it for six figures last year and now comes the moment of truth. It’s being published in April. This review comes from the Feb 27, 2009, Library Journal. We have a much kinder review of Eve’s story of her Peace Corps days and life overseas in Peace Corps Writers. Check it out. Brown-Waite, Eve. First Comes Love, Then Comes Malaria: How a Peace Corps Poster Boy Won My Heart and a Third World Adventure Changed My Life. Broadway. Apr. 2009. Verdict: This is ultimately rather thin stuff, with the author’s churlish moments unfortunately more memorable than the times she is genuinely touched by her surroundings. Optional at best. Background: Brown-Waite’s story begins as she joins the Peace Corps, falls in love with her recruiter, and goes to live in Ecuador. She didn’t complete the full tour . . .

I’ve come across a novel (his first) by RPCV Barry Kitterman who was in Belize in the seventies that came out in May 2008 from Southern Methodist University Press entitled The Baker’s Boy. The novel is set in Central America and in middle Tennessee, and involves two intertwined stories. In the first, Tanner Johnson, nearing midlife, has left his pregnant wife and taken a job as a baker, working nights, trying to avoid a shadowy presence that haunts him from the past. In the second, Tanner relives his painful experiences as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Belize, where he taught at a boys’ reform school. Of the book, novelists Rick DeMarinis writes, “A strong and haunting debut novel by a fine writer.” Davide Bradley, who wrote The Chaneysville Incident, says the book reminds him of “expatriate novels like Graham Greene’s The Quiet American.” I’ve “read into it,” as book editors like to . . .

About 20 years ago Efrem Sigel (Ivory Coast 1964–66) wrote me. He has been publishing short stories over the years, three of which were set in West Africa. He also raised a family, went to work, and kept thinking of writing a book. Well, he did and he his back with The Disappearance [Permanent Press 2/09] that right off the press received three excellent reviews in industry publications: a starred review and an interview in Publishers Weekly, Booklist (a key publication for libraries), and LibraryThing.com, a website for serious bookies. And it got an Indie Next Notable Book award from independent booksellers who belong to the American Booksellers Association. In the February 9, 2009, People Magazine review, Sue Corbett wrote: One idyllic summer day Joshua and Nathalie Sandler return from an errand in their Massachusetts hamlet to find their home empty. Their son Daniel, almost 14, has vanished. As anxious hours become hellish days and weeks, . . .

David A. Taylor (Mauritania 1983–85) has a great new book Soul Of A People: The WPA Writers’ Project Uncovers Depression America published by Wiley and out this month. In light of the recent comparisons between our current recession and the Great Depression, this is a timely book for all writers. For those who don’t know, the WPA Writers’ Project set out to employ thousands of out-of-work journalists, novelists, poets, and ordinary citizens to document history. These writers produced some of the best stories of American life ever published. Among those writers were John Cheever, Studs Terkel, Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, and Zora Neale Hurston. This year there will be a Smithsonian/Showtime television special on Soul of a People, and the American Library Association just announced that 30 libraries will recieve grants from the NEA for the Humanities to present outreach programs in connections with the book and documentary. David lives . . .