Peace Corps writers

História, História: Two years in the Cape Verde Islands By Eleanor Stanford (Cape Verde 1998-2000) CCLaP Hypermodern Editions March  2013 128 Pages http://www.cclapcenter.com/historia Reviewed by Marnie Mueller (Ecuador 1963-65) There are as many different Peace Corps memoirs as there are returned volunteers who choose to write them, each unique to the author and his or her experience, each generously sharing a hard won world view with the reader.  We all have our favorites, mine are Mike Tidwell’s The Ponds of Kalambayi, Geraldine Kennedy’s Harmattan, Kristin Holloway’s Monique and the Mango Rains, Peter Hessler’s River Town, and Moritz Thomsen’s masterwork, Living Poor.  These are the books I recommend to other writers, book groups, travelers, and friends who just want a good, original read.  I will now add Eleanor Stanford’s História, História to the list.  In fact, as I read her book for review, I found myself already telling anyone who would . . .

A Writer Writes THE PATH By Gigi Grover -York (India 1964-66) Despite the half century and the thousands of miles that separate my Oregon home from the Gundi ashram, I still retrace my way over the distant but familiar earthen path that led from the ashram to the train station at the village of Gundi, perched on the edge of the Kutch Desert in western India. That narrow raised track, no more than a meter wide and half a meter high, ran south from its tether at the broad wooden gate that breached the ashram’s thick whitewashed walls. I never thought much about who built the path.  It was a constant like the air and sky.  Surely someone maintained it but I never observed them.  It lay there when I came and had changed not at all upon my departure. The powder fine dust of the path had been deposited . . .

[This is the opening of the lead book review in the recent issue of the NYTIMES Sunday edition. The review was written by Rachel Shteir. It appeared last Sunday. Chicagoan, and RPCV novelist, Tony D’Souza (Ivory Coast 2000-02, Madagascar 2002-03), sent his reply to the editor of the Book Section. Read those paragraphs of the review and you’ll see why Tony send a Letter to the Editor. Check it out. The message is: don’t mess with a Chicago writer!] Published: April 21, 2013 RACHEL SHTEIR wrote: “Poor Chicago,” a friend of mine recently said. Given the number of urban apocalypses here, I couldn’t tell which problem she was referring to. Was it the Cubs never winning? The abominable weather? Meter parking costing more than anywhere else in America – up to $6.50 an hour – with the money flowing to a private company, thanks to the ex-mayor Richard M. Daley’s . . .

Thurston Clarke (Tunisia 1968) who served briefly as a PCV has a book coming in August 2013. It will be his 11th, and his third book on the Kennedy brothers. It is entitled: JFK’s Last Hundred Days: The Transformation of a Man and The Emergence of a Great President. In this book, Thurston weaves together Kennedy’s public and private lives, explains why the grief following his assassination has endured so long, and solves the most tantalizing Kennedy mystery of all–not who killed him but who Kennedy was when he was killed, and where he would have led us. Clarke picks up Kennedy’s last hundred days that began just after the death of two-day-old Patrick Kennedy. While Jackie was recuperating, the premature infant and his father were flown to Boston for Patrick’s treatment. Kennedy was holding his son’s hand when Patrick died on August 9, 1963. The loss of his son convinced . . .

Publisher’s Weekly in their March 18,2013, carried a starred review of The Price of Justice: A True Story of Greed and Corruption Leamer’s newest is the riveting and compulsively readable tale of the epic battle between Don Blankenship, the man who essentially ran the West Virginia coal industry through his company Massey Energy, and two seemingly ordinary attorneys: Bruce Stanley and David Fawcett.  The centerpiece of the story is a West Virginia mine owner whom Blankenship purposefully bankrupted and on whose behalf Stanley and Fawcett won(in 2002) a $50 million verdict that is still unpaid.  In hope of having the ruling overturned by the West Virginia Supreme Court, Blankenship sought to “buy” a seat on the court by contributing over $3 million to the successful campaign of a conservative judicial candidate.  However, the U.S. Supreme Court eventually found the Blankenship’s contributions were too much to allow the new West Virginia . . .

The Price of Justice: A True Story of Greed and Corruption Laurence Leamer (Nepal 1964–66) Times Books 412 Pages $30.00 (hardcover); $14.99 (Kindle) May 2013 Reviewed by Tony D’Souza (Ivory Coast 2000–02, Madagascar 2002–03) COAL HAS LONG BEEN A METAPHOR in our culture for the dark seed inside the greedy soul; the color of it, its hardness, all that compressed, combustible power. The pits where it’s dug are among our most basic conceptions of hell. “It’s dark as a dungeon,” Johnny Cash sings in his song of the same name, “damp as the dew/danger is double/pleasures are few/It’s dark as a dungeon way down in the mine.” Larry Leamer in his new book, The Price of Justice: A True Story of Greed and Corruption, discovers something even darker; the heart of a West Virginia coal executive whose lust for union busting, corporate expansion and profit leads to the deaths of . . .

  Volunteers in the African Bush:  Memoirs from Sierra Leone Edited by David Read Barker (Sierra Leone 1965–67) Dog Ear Publishing $15.00 (paperback); $3.99 (Kindle) 163 pages 2013 Reviewed by Andy Trincia (Romania 2002–04) When I was an aspiring young writer — at about age 10 — I decided that I was going to write my first novel and set it in Sierra Leone. I spun my metal globe and that’s where my finger landed. Besides, it was a cool name for a country. I still haven’t written that novel, nor been to Sierra Leone, though I have read memoirs about Ivory Coast and Liberia. That distant memory made me smile when I had a chance to read Volunteers in the African Bush:  Memoirs from Sierra Leone. The book’s editor, David Read Barker, had a lingering question in his head. He wondered if he and his fellow Peace Corps Volunteers . . .

Imagonna: Peace Corps Memories by Julian Weldon Martin (Nigeria 1961–63) Createspace $10.00 (paperback) 240 pages 2012 Reviewed by John F. Fanselow (Nigeria 1961–63; Somalia staff 1966–68) When I read a book for a review I put post-its on pages that I want to return to after I finish reading the book. After reading the first twenty pages of Julian’s memories, I noticed,  that I had pasted post-its on every other page! As I read on, I kept pasting post-its, not only on every other page, but in some cases also on every page. I was unable to highlight important points and unimportant points because I found that each page contained worthwhile insights or questions, or both. While Julian repeats some themes — loneliness, the racism of some colleagues and his headmaster, his curiosity about the culture of his students and those in his community, limitations of his Peace Corps training, . . .

Song of San Francisco (poems) Ed Mycue (Ghana 1961–63) Spectacular Diseases Press $10 18 pages 2012 Reviewed by Darcy Meijer (Gabon 1982-84) I was happy to get a short book to review from John, but this chapbook of ten poems by Ed Mycue takes a lot of re-reading. When I first read the poems to my husband, he said, “Sure, I get them.” I challenged him to explain, and he said he couldn’t put it into words. I talked to Mycue about this, and he quoted Robert Frost: “What is lost in the translation is the poetry.” He also responded warmly to my specific questions about the poems and told me about his family and ideas about life. One small problem is that Mycue writes prose just as he writes poetry. So where does this leave me as a reviewer? I’ll try. First, let me say that I understood three . . .

Apocalypse Then by Bob Criso (Nigeria & Somalia 1966–68) • Part III Postscript AFTER LEAVING NIGERIA I buried the story of my final days along with all the associated feelings of loss, fear and anger. I remember saying to a friend on the evacuation boat, “How could we ever explain what happened to someone who wasn’t there?” After returning to the states in ’68, I contacted Ruth Olsen, the former Director in the East, and spent a weekend at her home in Washington, DC. Ruth, a former WAC, could be a tough administrator, but after hours she would kick her shoes off, pour a scotch and put her feet up, always gracious and lively in my experience. We talked long into the night about Biafra and what she referred to as “that incredible experience you had.” She knew all the details from Laura, Jeff and June. I started seeing a . . .

The Ride by Dean Mahon (Cameroon 1974-78) Self-published 163 pages $7.99 paperback, $2.99 ebook 2012 Reviewed by Deidre Swesnik (Mali 1996-98) Dean Mahon prefers another world. At least he did when he was climbing out of a eight-week coma, following a disease of unknown origin that he picked up during his travels. Mahon had been a Peace Corps Volunteer in Cameroon three decades earlier, but this was not a Peace Corps experience. Mahon was traveling to Ukraine and Russia for work when he came down with something that the doctors still can’t diagnose, even today.  He fell terribly ill and was put into a medically-induced coma followed by months of hospital and rehab stays.  More than once his family and friends were told to prepare for the worst. In The Ride, Dean Mahon describes the vivid dream “world” he experienced while in the coma and afterwards. He captures the misplaced . . .

A Writer Writes Mark G. Wentling was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Honduras 1967-69 and Togo 1970-73, and in Gabon and Niger as a member of Peace Corps staff. He then  joined USAID in 1977 and served in Niamey, Conakry, Lome, Mogadishu and Dar es Salaam before retiring from the U.S. Senior Foreign Service in 1996.  Since retiring, he has worked for USAID as its Senior Advisor for the Great Lakes, and as its Country Program Manager for Niger and Burkina Faso. He has also worked in Africa for U.S. Non-Governmental Organizations and he is currently Country Director for Plan in Burkina Faso. On September 20, he marked 42 years in Africa.  He has worked in, or visited, all 54 African countries. He has six children and hails from Kansas. His novel, Africa’s Embrace, is scheduled to be published this year. • Togo: Today and in 1970 A Personal Journey . . .

 My postman hates me. He has good reason. Every day he brings me bulky packages, books written by RPCVs. He doesn’t know that, of course. He thinks I’m a crazy e-bay buyer, that I’m getting lawn equipment for spring, or buying fire logs wholesale. But the other day I got a very small package, smaller than a ‘bread box’ as they use to say on “What’s My Line” for those old enough to recall. It looked kind-of cute, like a box of expensive chocolates (being close to Easter, you never know….I do have friends) but alas it was “yet another Peace Corps memoir” as my wife might say. Let me tell you now it was better than a box of chocolate! It is perhaps the best Peace Corps memoir that has come my way since Marian Beil and I started promoting Peace Corps writers in the late ’80s. Lyrical and poignant, . . .