Peace Corps writers

  Humankind discovers intelligent life in an octopus species with its own language and culture, and sets off a high-stakes global competition to dominate the future. Rumors begin to spread of a species of hyperintelligent, dangerous octopus that may have developed its own language and culture. Marine biologist Dr. Ha Nguyen, who has spent her life researching cephalopod intelligence, will do anything for the chance to study them. The transnational tech corporation DIANIMA has sealed the remote Con Dao Archipelago, where the octopuses were discovered, off from the world. Dr. Nguyen joins DIANIMA’s team on the islands: a battle-scarred security agent and the world’s first android. The octopuses hold the key to unprecedented breakthroughs in extrahuman intelligence. The stakes are high: there are vast fortunes to be made by whoever can take advantage of the octopuses’ advancements, and as Dr. Nguyen struggles to communicate with the newly discovered species, forces . . .

  by Evelyn LaTorre ( Peru 1964-66)   Face it. You’re not getting any younger. Once you’re gone, your stories won’t be there the way only you can tell them—unless they’re written down. Do it now. One never knows when one’s faculties might fade. Write a scene about one of the many tales you’ve often given voice to about the time you “did such-and-such and then …” Those memories are important to put on paper or store in your computer while you can still recall them. Look at a few old photos or listen to music you loved to resurrect forgotten feelings and the memories will come flooding back. “So who cares about what I have to say?” you may ask. Maybe your family will. Or maybe they won’t. But do it anyway. Leaving a record of your life while you’re still kickin’ will do more than prove you existed. . . .

  George W. McDaniel (Togo 1968-70) has writing a new portrayal of this 18th-century icon among America’s historic sites, Drayton Hall Stories: A Place and Its People is the first book in the nation to focus on a site’s recent history using interviews with descendants (both White and Black), board members, staff, donors, architects, historians, preservationists, tourism leaders, and more. Like different pieces of a mosaic, each interview combines with others to create an engaging picture of this one place, revealing never-before-shared family moments, major decisions in preservation and site stewardship, and pioneering efforts to transform a Southern plantation into a site for racial conciliation. Readers will come to see Drayton Hall’s people not as stereotypes, but as the real people they were — and are. Maps, photographs, lines of descent, interview questions, a how-to guide, and related website, all provide blueprints for readers who wish to undertake similar endeavors to build . . .

  From Paul Theroux (Malawi 1963-64) comes a brilliant new novel of chilling psychological depth, the tale of a younger brother whose lifelong rivalry with his older brother—a powerful lawyer with a pattern of gleefully vicious betrayals—culminates in the ultimate plan: murder. Cal has always lived in the shadow of his manipulative and domineering brother, Frank, who was doted upon by their mother and beloved by the girls in their small New England hometown—including Cal’s own girlfriends. In an attempt to escape Frank’s intrusive presence, Cal pursues a different kind of freedom in the world’s wild spaces, prospecting for gold and precious minerals everywhere from the heat of the desert at the Mexican border to the Alaskan chill, to central Africa, and Colombian mines where he will meet the love of his life, Vida. Soon he is dripping in wealth, his pockets full of gold nuggets and emeralds, but the . . .

  THE GRIEVERS’ GROUP by Richard Wiley (Korea 1967-69) Stay Thirsty Press May 2022 383 pages $16.95 (Paperback), $9.99 (Kindle)   Reviewed by Kathleen Coskran (Ethiopia 1965-67) • The idea behind The Grievers’ Group is intrinsically interesting — a therapy group of five strangers who have recently lost a spouse facilitated by a quirky therapist, Pórdís Jakobsdōttir, whose only college “degree” is an honorary one from Chokkold Institute in Iceland. She conducts the therapy sessions in her simply furnished living room dominated by the imposing image of her mentor Josefine Christophersen-Hemmingsen which gives Pórdis comfort and the appearance of legitimacy. The picture never speaks, but her looming image affects everybody, especially her mentee. The story unfolds like many tales of strangers grouped together at random with some surprising twists especially when the reader learns early on that relatives of two of the grievers, Cornelius’ 14-year-old granddaughter Phoebe and LaVeronica’s son, . . .

  When I was growing up on a farm in Illinois all six of us kids (I was the youngest) waited for the  Saturday Evening Post to arrive in Wednesday’s mail so we’d have stories to read over the weekend. After dinner, whichever of my three sisters was washing the dishes that night would prop a book up against the kitchen window so she could read as she scrubbed. Since my job was to dry, I couldn’t pull off that trick. But I loved books too, and before I learned to read, my oldest sister would read to me whatever Jane Austen or Brontē novel she had gotten from the village library. We read so many books, in fact, that soon my older siblings had gone through everything deemed “age appropriate” by the librarian, Mrs. Butterfield. So one day she refused to let my sister Eileen check out the book she’d chosen. My mother, . . .