Peace Corps writers

Bryant Wieneke is an assistant dean at a California university and has self published several novels. The latest, The Mission Priority, is the third in that series. A fourth will soon be published and a fifth is now being written. “It became a vehicle,” says Wieneke. “The two main characters have opposite foreign policy objectives.”  This latest book is reviewed by the intellectual tag-team of Lawrence Lihosit (Honduras 1975–77) and his son, Ezequiel. The first in this series by Wieneke, Priority One, was reviewed in 2005 on Peace Corps  Writers by David Gurr (Ethiopia 1962–64). • The Mission Priority by Bryant Wieneke Peace Rose Publishing 2009 335 pages $10.00 Reviewed by Lawrence  (Honduras 1975–77) and Ezequiel Lihosit Do you miss the Bush era colored coded paranoia? I sure do. That was even better than building fallout shelters during the 1960’s. I only wish they had introduced some kind of anti-terrorist uniform with cool patches, maybe a . . .

Martha Cooper (Thailand 1963-65) taught English in Thailand before journeying by motorcycle from Bangkok to London, where she earned a degree in ethnology from Oxford. Then she settled down in New York and went to work as a staff photographer for the New York Post. It was during this time, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, that she began to shoot some of the most famous photographs in the world. She spent several years photographing elevated subway lines from empty lots the rooftops of buildings in a crime ridden South Bronx, capturing New York City’s state of urban decay.  She was also able to gain the confidence of some of the most respected artists of this inner city community, such as DONDI, DURO, and LADY PINK. Assuming great risk, Cooper accompanied artists to train yards and lay-ups capturing many significant moments in aerosol art history. Taking these photos, Martha and Henry Chalfant assembled, Subway Art, a book . . .

Reviewer Don Messerschmidt (Nepal 1963-65) is an anthropologist, writer and former magazine editor. Besides numerous articles, he has published five books including two biographies, Against the Current: The Life of Lain Singh Bangdel-Writer, Painter and Art Historian of Nepal (Orchid Press 2004), and Moran of Kathmandu: Priest, Educator and Ham Radio ‘Voice of the Himalayas’ (Orchid Press, 1997; rev. ed. in press, 2010). His next book, Discovering the Big Dogs of Tibet and the Himalayas (in press, 2010), combines memoir and essay; and an anthology of his creative nonfiction is forthcoming. Don writes from his home near Portland, Oregon, when he’s not off leading treks in the Himalayas. Mosquito Conversations More Stories from the Upper Peninsula by Lauri Anderson (Nigeria 1965-67) North Star Press $14.95 139 pages July 2009 Reviewed by Don Messerschmidt (Nepal 1963-65) If ever there was a culture within a culture, it’s on Michigan’s “U.P.”, the Upper . . .

Cynthia Morrison Phoel ( Bulgaria 1994-96) was a PCV in a Bulgarian town not unlike the one in her new collection, Cold Snap. Her book will be published this spring (April) by Southern Methodist University Press. Cynthia holds degrees from Cornell and the Warrren Wilson MFA Program for Writers, and her short stories have appeared in the Missouri Review, Gettysburg Review, and Harvard Review. She lives near Boston and just gave birth to her third child! Busy RPCV. The book is getting some great advance word, and great blubs from writers like Steve Yarbrough, Alison Lurie, Katherine Shonk, Robert Boswell, Robert Cohen, etc. While the Peace Corps ‘volunteer’ is not part of her stories, actually there is only one American in the stories, this collection of stories, now a book, shows what an RPCV can do with the experience. As Alison Lurie writes, “I admire Cynthia Phoel’s use of original . . .

Reviewer P. David Searles served three years as the Country Director for the Peace Corps in the Philippines from 1971 to 1974, and then spent two years at Peace Corps headquarters as Regional Director for NANEAP and as Deputy Director of the agency (1974-76).  Following the end of his business career in 1990, David earned a Ph. D. from the University of Kentucky (1993), and published two books: A College for Appalachia (1995) and The Peace Corps Experience (1997), both published by The University Press of Kentucky. • The Boys: 1st North Dakota Volunteers in the Philippines by John Durand (Philippines 1962–64) Puzzlebox Press $17.95 422 pages 2010 Reviewed by P. David Searles (PC staff 1971–76) John Durand has written a fascinating account of a little remembered event at the very beginning of America’s entry onto the world stage as an imperial power:  the struggle to subdue and annex the Philippines. . . .

Back in July of 1996 I talked with John Thorndike (El Salvador 1967-69) about his book, Another Way Home. It was his story of meeting a young Salvadoran woman, Clarisa, when he was in the Peace Corps, teaching English at the National University of El Salvador, and falling in love with Clarisa and getting married. After the first year, when their son Janir was born, Clarisa drifted into schizophrenia and her behavior endangered her child’s life. John was working as a farmer, but he feared for his son’s safety and he made the decision to bring Janir back to the United States and raise him alone. Another Way Home is the poignant account of their life together. Today, John lives and writes in Athens, Ohio. His new non-fiction came out in October, 2009, and is entitled: The Last of His Mind: A Year in the Shadow of Alzheimer’s. John writes on his blog [http://www.johnthorndike.com], “My father, Joe . . .

When Things Get Dark: A Mongolian Winter’s Tale by Matthew Davis (Mongolia 2000–02) Davis, a graduate student at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, recounts his two eventful years as a Peace Corps volunteer teaching in a small Mongolian town in his knowledgeable yet convoluted memoir. As a 23-year-old Midwesterner, nothing prepared him for the former Communist satellite, which is largely rural and teeming with the legacy of the Great Khan, yaks and goats being herded on the rugged steppes. Davis sees a landscape on the brink of change and a young population eager for a better life depicted in Internet cafes and media from the outside world. Yet the isolation and culture shock plunge him into “a dangerous place psychologically,” and alcohol abuse and mayhem result in a brutal drunken fight. Other than some standard travelogue facts on Mongolian history and culture, Davis is correct when he concludes . . .

The Sophisticated Savage (Anthropological memoir) by Carla Seidl (Azerbaijan 2006–08) Inner Hearth Books $13.95 230 pages May 2009 • Whispering Campaign Stories from Mesoamerica by Lawrence F. Lihosit (Honduras 1975–77) iUniverse, Inc. $11.95 120 pages November, 2009 • Valley Views II Four Plays by Charles G. Blewitt (Grenada 1969–71) Offset Paperback $15.00 March 2009 • The Boys 1st North Dakota Volunteers in the Philippines John Durand (Philippines 1962–64) Puzzlebox Press $17.45 422 pages 2010 • Mosquito Conversations More Stories from the Upper Peninsula by Lauri Anderson (Nigeria 1965-67) North Star Press $14.95 139 pages July 2009 • Inherit The Family Marrying into Eastern Europe Stories by Vello Vikerkaar (Estonia 1992-94) Book Man 168 pages $15.99 October 2009 • Islands of Shadow, Islands of Light (Peace Corps Novel) By Yaron Glazer (Panama 1997-99) BookSurge 300 pages $18.99 July 2009 • Henry and Anthony (Young adult) by H. Lynn Beck (El Salvador, . . .

Dick Lipez (Ethiopia 1962–64; PC/HQ staff 1964–67) is a former editorial writer at The Berkshire Eagle.  He also reviews books for The Washington Post and he writes the Don Strachey private eye series under the name Richard Stevenson.  Death Vows was chosen by Maureen Corrigan on NPR as one of the top five crime novels of 2008.  The 38 Million Dollar Smile, set in Thailand, was published in September. When George Packer’s (Togo 1982-83) new book, Interesting Times: Writings from a Turbulent Decade came out, I asked Dick to read it, as he has traveled to many of the countries that are the focus of Packer’s essays. Dick also was a Peace Corps evaluator (after being a PCV) and he has that edgy way about him that those early evaluators had who worked for Charlie Peters. These evaluators of the early Peace Corps projects  never believed anything the staff  told them, and they never . . .

Interview by Carole Goldberg When Emily Arsenault was growing up in Cheshire, a teacher told the fifth-grader she was very good at writing. Give that teacher an A. At age 11, Arsenault, a fan of ghost stories and books for girls, wrote her first novel, about a summer camp, with the idea of getting published. But a year later, she said in a recent telephone conversation from her home in Shelburne Falls, Mass., she realized, “This isn’t very good.” As an adult, she tried again but also judged that young adult novel “not ready for prime time.” This fall, however, Arsenault, now 33, has published her debut novel, “The Broken Teaglass,” and it is an accomplished work. It is set at a staid dictionary company not unlike Merriam-Webster in Springfield, where she once worked. Peopled by quirky characters and centered on a mysterious killing – although it’s not a mystery . . .

Mary-Ann Tirone Smith (Cameroon 1965–67) has written nine novels including-purportedly- the first long fiction to come out of the Peace Corps, Lament for a Silver-Eyed Woman, meaning written by a volunteer with characters who are volunteers. Her most recent, Dirty Water: A Red Sox Mystery, was written in collaboration with her son, Sox blogger Jere Smith.  She has also written a memoir, Girls of Tender Age, in which she gives two paragraphs to the Peace Corps although the book does include a photo of her and her Cameroonian students. She is presently working on a Civil War novel. Here she reviews the first novel by Emily Arsenault (South Africa 2004–06) entitled The Broken Teaglass. • The Broken Teaglass by Emily Arsenault (South Africa 2004–06) Delacorte Press September 2009 384 pages $25.00 Reviewed by Mary-Ann Tirone Smith (Cameroon 1965–67) As I slip into The Broken Teaglass knowing nothing about the work . . .

For millennia Europeans believed that the world consisted of three parts: Europe, Africa, and Asia. They drew the three continents in countless shapes and sizes on their maps, but occasionally they hinted at the existence of a “fourth part of the world,” a mysterious, inaccessible place, separated from the rest by a vast expanse of ocean. It was a land of myth — until 1507, that is, when Martin Waldseemüller and Matthias Ringmann, two obscure scholars working in the mountains of eastern France, made it real. Columbus had died the year before convinced that he had sailed to Asia, but Waldseemüller and Ringmann, after reading about the Atlantic discoveries of Columbus’s contemporary Amerigo Vespucci, came to a startling conclusion: Vespucci had reached the fourth part of the world. To celebrate his achievement, Waldseemüller and Ringmann printed a huge map, for the first time showing the New World surrounded by water . . .

Back in 2004 John Perkins (Ecuador 1968-71) published Confessions of an Economic Hit Man.It  became something of a best seller, this story of his life and the conspiracies he was part of around the world after his Peace Corps years. Now John is back with a new book, Hoodwinked. It is out today.  The book  John says is “by far the most important book I have written.” This is his fourth book.  Here is what John has Hoodwinked is all about: It provides the facts – and many personal stories from economic hit men, jackals, business execs, politicians, and educators – behind the following Eight Key points: 1. The US – in fact the world – has been stolen by the very wealthy and powerful, the corporatocracy. 2. This has created a failed system – unsustainable, unjust, unstable, dangerous. 3. The cause is a mutant, viral form of capitalism – what I call “Predatory Capitalism” that began with President Reagan and . . .

The handful of Peace Corps countries on the ‘eastern rim’ has generated a number of books that rate at the top of any list of ‘good’ Peace Corps novels and memoirs. Right up there are books that deserve to be read again, including Roland Merullo’s (Micronesia 1979-81) novel, Leaving Losapas, and P.F. Kluge’s (Micronesia 1967-69) memoir The Edge of Paradise: America in Micronesia. Many of you have read, River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze River by Peter Hessler (China 1996-98) and another member of the “China Gang,” Mike Meyer’s (China  1995-97) author of The Last Days of Old Beijing: Life in the Vanishing Backstreets of a City Transformed. The Peace Corps goes back a long way in this region. The Philippines and Thailand were among the very first Peace Corps countries. From this region, Peace Corps writers have produced many historical books (maybe this is where all the smart PCVs were sent?) but . . .