Peace Corps Worldwide – Page 322 – promoting Peace Corps writers since 1989

Review of Will Lutwick's Dodging Machetes

Jun 17 2012

Dodging Machetes: How I survived Forbidden Love, Bad Behavior and the Peace Corps in Fiji by Will Lutwick (Fiji 1968-70) Peace Corps Writers $15.95 paperback 2012 266 pages Reviewed by Lawrence F. Lihosit (Honduras, 1975-77) MR. LUTWICK HAS SUCCEEDED in creating an entertaining and thought provoking Peace Corps memoir. This is a fine example of what a memoir can be for those willing to invest in writing rather than type-writing. Although ostensibly a love story, the author explores military conscription, discrimination and guilt. Written with episodic, fast paced chapters it is intriguing. Once I started, I could not stop and yet, found myself thinking about his story and its themes long after the highlighted passages began to fade. Twenty-two year old Lutwick arrived in Fiji in November, 1968, part of the third group of Volunteers. The program had begun only eleven months before, the same month that the tone of . . .

Office of Inspector General of the Peace Corps denies Dr. Textor opportunity to see a preview of its evaluation of the so-called “Five Year Rule”

Jun 16 2012

The Office of the Inspector General of the Peace Corps will publish its yearlong review of the “Five Year Rule” within the next “two to three weeks.” Fifty years ago, Dr. Robert Textor authored the original “In, Up, and Out” memo that morphed into the Five Year Rule. Unfortunately, he is scheduled for surgery on June 29th. He made a reasonable request to be allowed to see the final review before his surgery. The Office of the Inspector General of the Peace Corps considered the request for two days and then denied it without explanation. Dr. Robert Textor was a young Anthropologist who was called to Peace Corps Washington in June of 1961 to consult the fledging agency. As an Anthropologist who had done field work in Thailand, Textor knew how critically important “transcultural experience” was. He wanted to make sure that Peace Corps Washington could capture the “transcultural experience” . . .

Review of Juana Bordas's Salsa, Soul, and Spirit

Jun 15 2012

Salsa, Soul, and Spirit: Leadership For A Multiculural Age by Juana Bordas (Chile 1964–66) Berrett-Koehler Publishers [Second Edition, Updated and Expanded] $22.95 (paperback); $11.62 (Kindle) 232 pages 2012 Reviewed by Bob Arias (Colombia 1964–66) I WAS PREPARED that Juana’s book would read like a text . . . so I got ready to prep myself like any good student. Wrong — from the first page this “text” read like a novel, excitement and adventure on every page . . . I stopped underlining her quotes with my yellow pen, and just started reading what felt like another beautiful novel from Isabel Allende, same colorful and intense style. Surely they must have been childhood friends! I began to see myself, and my Mexican heritage, as Juana opened doors for me to appreciate the beauty of who we are . . . a “text” of a different nature. There is more to . . .

Review of Theroux's The Lower River

Jun 15 2012

[Charles Larson (Nigeria 1962-64) who has written some fine books on Africa, is an African scholar himself, and now a Emeritus Professor of Literature at American University, in Washington, D.C. has published a very good review of Paul Theroux (Malawi 1963-65) new novel The Lower River. It is in the weekend edition ( June 8-10, 2012) of Counterpunch, edited by Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair. The review is reprinted with Charles permission. You can reach Larson at clarson@american.edu.] Africa Distressed by Charles R. Larson (Nigeria 1962-64) Paul Theroux’s early novels (Fong and the Indians, Girls at Play and Jungle Lovers) drew on the writer’s years in the Peace Corps, in Malawi, where he began teaching in 1963. These works were generally comic, satiric, even hopeful-not the bleakness about Africa revealed in his most recent novel, The Lower River. When Ellis Hock, the main character in the latest work, contemplates . . .

Golf Greatest Rivalry:Players Against the Lake Course

Jun 14 2012

Golf has always been the breeding ground of great rivalries. The Big Three: Hogan, Nelson and Snead. Then Palmer, Player and Nicklaus. Next, a long decade of Nicklaus vs. Watson. And today Tiger against Everyone! But the greatest rivalry in golf is actually not one player against another. The greatest rivalry pits players against championship courses. And the one to beat, decade after decade, is the Lake Course of The Olympic Club in San Francisco, home of this week’s 2012 U.S. Open. Ben Hogan, who won three majors in one year, could not defeat this course in 1955. Arnold Palmer, who won everywhere and on every golf course, had a seven-stroke lead with nine holes to go in the final round in 1966 and the Lake Course beat him. Tom Watson, winner of five British Opens, two Masters and one U.S. Open, failed to win there in 1987. And the late, . . .

Tools of the (Writing) Trade

Jun 13 2012

Here’s an interesting piece in of literary trivia that was in the Authors Guild Bulletin (Spring 2012). Matthew G. Kirschenbaum, an English professor at the University of Maryland, gave a lecture recently at the New York Public entitled, “Stephen King’s Wang.” King’s first computer was a Wang. Kirschendaum collects old computers and hopes to discover “Who was the first novelist to use a word processor?” Mark Twain was the first to use a typewriter, for Life on the Mississippi, and The New York Times quotes Nietzsche, who typed, “Our writing tools are also working on our thoughts.” One of the earliest bestsellers written on a computer was Tom Clancy’s 1984 The Hunt for Red October. Frank Herbert’s Dune may have been submitted to his publisher in the late 1970s on 8-inch floppy disks, according to Kirschendaum. Kirschenbaum’s Track Changes: A Literary History of Word Processing is due for publication in . . .

Naughty Titles

Jun 13 2012

Titles with dirty words in them often wind up on bestseller lists according to a short item in the Authors Guild Bulletin, Spring 2012. In 2005, there was On Bullshit. Then followed Shit My Dad Says. In 2010 there was Assholes and in November Tucker Max wrote a sequel, Assholes Finish First. It made the trade paperback bestseller list, but not in the No. 1 slot.

Hessler in Cairo

Jun 13 2012

Every morning when I wake up to make coffee I flip on Morning Joe and wait for the failed congressman to stop yapping so I can see if new rioting has taken place in downtown Cairo, and find out what’s new in Peter Hessler’s (China 1996-98) world. Where’s Peter, I’m thinking, as I watch the rioting in Tahrir or Abbasiya. Peter, I know, lives within blocks of city central, and I know he is just a crazy enough RPCV to get close enough to the action to get into real trouble. Well, the new New Yorker (June 18, 2012) has him alive and well and reporting on the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood and what it means for Egyptians and the rest of us. The long article (it wouldn’t be a New Yorker article if it wasn’t long) has Peter and his translator Mohamed calmly walking toward another demonstration in . . .

Leamer Again in the News

Jun 12 2012

Today’s edition of The Journal News, a Gannett paper in Lower Westchester, top story is about Larry Leamer’s (Nepal 1965-67) bombshell yesterday in Newsweek. The Richardson family said the Newsweek/Daily Beast report was based on “vindictive lies.” Leamer, who is a noted Kennedy authority, and author of three books on the family, based his account, he says, on documents filed during the divorce proceedings. Leamer also says his research showed the Mary Kennedy was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder and that she was in his words, “a desperately sick women.” Leamer said he contacted a Harvard professor and authority on the disorder who confirmed that he had met with Mary and Robert Kennedy and that she exhibited, in fact, clear symptoms of the mental illness. Meanwhile, Mary Kennedy’s attorney, said he and the family are shocked by the accusations. Family court document are “sealed”–only available to those who are a party . . .

CorpsAfrica Hold Event in NYC in Memory of Ambassador Holbrooke

Jun 12 2012

Liz Fanning (Morocco 1993-94) served as a PCV in the High Atlas Mountains, where she lived in a small Berber village and worked on environmental sustainability projects. Since she has come home, Liz has worked in a wide range of non-profit organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union, Schoolhouse Supplies and the Near East Foundation, and she was a founding Board member and Vice President for six years of the High Atlas Foundation, a nonprofit organized by former Peace Corps volunteers from Morocco. Then in 2011 she started CorpsAfrica to provide young adults in Africa the opportunity to serve as volunteers in their own countries. CorpsAfrica is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. She is inviting everyone in New York City to a cocktail reception to pay tribute to Ambassador Richard Holbrooke. It is on Wednesday, June 20th from 6 pm-8 pm. Holbrooke served as Morocco Country Director for the Peace Corps . . .

Wofford/Shriver/King in the Fog of Political History

Jun 11 2012

This afternoon while having lunch I caught Andrea Mitchell’s program on MSNBC. Around 1:45 EST she was interviewing Mark Shriver on his book about his Dad, A Good Man. Early in this interview, they started to talk about Sarge and his friendship with Martin Luther King back in Chicago when Shriver was head of the Board of Education for the City. Next, they shifted to Kennedy nomination and the famous spontaneous phone call that JFK made to Coretta King on the day her husband had been tossed into a jail for a civil rights protest. It was a politically risky telephone call by Kennedy, and any one his advisers would have stopped it, had they been in the room. It turned out to be a key political gesture by Kennedy and turned the Black Vote for him that November. Andrea Mitchell directed the MSNBC conversation this afternoon and Mark went . . .

Larry Leamer (Nepal 1965-67) "The Last Days of Mary Kennedy" in Current Newsweek Issue

Jun 11 2012

Jun 11, 2012 1:00 AM EDT She was the love of Bobby Jr.’s life. Then everything unraveled. In Newsweek, bestselling Kennedy historian Laurence Leamer reveals the heartbreaking story of Mary’s long decline, including: The account of the couple’s longtime housekeeper, who recalls Mary’s self-destructive drinking habit, her depression in the days leading up her suicide-and tells how she and Bobby discovered Mary dead in the estate’s barn. Details from Bobby Jr.’s sealed divorce affidavit, which contains allegations that Mary physically abused him, stole personal items from his daughter, ran over the family’s dog in the driveway, and repeatedly threatened to kill herself An interview with Harvard psychiatrist Dr. John Gunderson, who had met Mary and believes she had a textbook case of Borderline Personality Disorder More at:http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/06/10/the-last-days-of-mary-richardson-kennedy.html

Kirkus gives COOPER’S PROMISE rave review

Jun 08 2012

Cooper’s Promise by Timothy Jay Smith (Program Consultant: Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Russia, Ukraine and Armenia) iUniverse, $15.95 209 pages April, 2011 COOPER’S PROMISE (reviewed on July 15, 2012) In Smith’s debut novel, a former American soldier hiding out in a small African country can’t escape the ghosts of his past. Sgt. Cooper, an Army deserter, spends his days in Lalanga drinking cheap gin in a dive. He makes a promise to Lulay, a young girl who sells herself each night, to someday take her away. What little money Cooper makes comes from buying smuggled diamonds from a blind boy and his sister, and turning a meager profit at an Arab merchant’s shop. There, he meets the merchant’s son, Sadiq, with whom he becomes quickly enamored; he longs to accidentally run into him at a local hammam (a bathhouse and massage parlor). But Cooper’s life is confounded by a strange . . .

Ben Hogan at the Century County Club, The Beginning of His Career

Jun 08 2012

The end of Ben Hogan’s brilliant golf career in many ways came to its sad conclusion when an unknown municipal golf pro named Jack Fleck upset him at the 1955 U.S. Open played at the Olympic Club in San Francisco. Capturing that moment again for us are two great books that have just been published: The Longest Shot by Neil Sagebiel (Thomas Dunne Books) and The Upset by Al Barkow (Chicago Review Press). These books read like novels (even though we know the outcome) and they take us back once more to that suspenseful summer Sunday in mid-June of ’55. These books also bring the golf world into focus with the return next week to Olympic Club of the 2012 U.S. Open. For a certain generation of golfers who can never read enough about Ben Hogan, both accounts of that tournament are great reads. Finally we have worthy bookends to . . .

Review of P.F. Kluge's The Master Blaster

Jun 07 2012

The Master Blaster by P.F. Kluge (Micronesia 1967–69) Overlook Press 302 pages $26.95 (hardback); $12.99 (Kindle) March 2012 Reviewed by Reilly Ridgell (Micronesia 1971–73) OF ALL THE RPCV WRITERS who have come out of Micronesia, P.F. Kluge is perhaps the most successful. He has had published by mainstream traditional publishers a total of nine novels and two non-fiction works. Most of the RPCV writers who get reviewed on this site are either self-published or published by small presses with scant resources for marketing. Kluge has had two of his writings made into movies. Real, Hollywood movies. I must admit, I envy his success. I had read two of his works before: The Day I Die: A Novel of Suspense [Bobbs-Merrill 1976] set mostly in Palau, and The Edge of Paradise: America in Micronesia [Random House 1991], his Micronesia memoir prompted in part by the suicide of a Micronesian leader he . . .