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This review by Richard Lipez (Ethiopia 1962-64)  appeared today, July 31, 2012, in The Washington Post. • Book review: ‘The Lower River,’ by Paul Theroux By Richard Lipez Former Peace Corps volunteers sometimes like to take sentimental journeys back to the towns and villages where they spent a couple of years expanding their world views and doing useful work. I’ve gone on such a visit myself, and it’s gratifying. But Ellis Hock isn’t so lucky. He’s the protagonist in “The Lower River,” a grim-spirited and rattlingly suspenseful new novel by Paul Theroux, who was a Peace Corps volunteer in the 1960s. When Hock returns to Malawi after 40 years, instead of enjoying a happy reunion he is taken captive by his erstwhile hosts and treated to a long, hideous look at Africa at its phantasmagoric worst. The strengths of this novel, Theroux’s 29th work of fiction, are numerous. For deep-in-the-bush . . .

The Raft S.A. Bodeen (Tanzania 1989-90) Feiwel and Friends (an imprint of Macmillan) 231 pagesAugust $16.99 (Hardcover); $9.99 (Kindle) 2012 Reviewed by Reilly Ridgell (Micronesia 1971-73) I’m not much into reading “young adult” literature.  Oh I read some Hardy boys mysteries and maybe a  few others like that but by high school I gravitated quickly to the classics and works considered more “hip.”  So I wasn’t sure how I’d find S.A. Bodeen’s survival story, The Raft.  What a pleasant surprise it was.  The writing is strong and purposeful, the characters interesting, the situation fascinating.  The story is told in the first person, usually a red flag but Bodeen pulls it off well, by Robie Mitchell, a 15 year old girl who teeters between common sense and being a bit of an airhead.  But I guess that’s what comes with being 15.  She has spent much of her teen years isolated . . .

The Lower River Paul Theroux (Nyasaland/Malawi 1963-1965) Houghton Mifflin Harcourt 323 pages Hardcover $25 May 2012 Reviewed by Tony D’Souza (Ivory Coast 2000-02, Madagascar 2002-03) PAUL THEROUX HAS HAD A LONG and storied career. After collaborating with Moses on the travel sections of the Old Testament, he then wrote a novel about the writing of Tristram Shandy, which he witnessed, before following up with a non-fiction book retracing the retracing of his quinquireme voyage from Nineveh to distant Ophir, scrimshawing notes the whole way. Later, he had a tragic falling out with both Johnson and Bierce concerning ‘pled’ versus ‘pleaded’ before shaking hands with Mr. & Mrs. Lech Walesa, all drunk, at the marriage of the maharani of East Timor. In the same calendar year. While contributing to Smithsonian. Or something like that. I believe that The Lower River is the fourth book I’ve reviewed by Theroux in the past . . .

African Son William J. Hemminger (Senegal 1973–75) University Press of America, $24.95 104 pages 2012 Review by Leita Kaldi Davis (Senegal 1993–96) WILLIAM HEMMINGER, PH.D. IS LEARNED AND GIFTED in many areas, as a poet, pianist/composer, teacher, translator and gardener. He has a great mind, yet what comes through in African Son is his heart. This is a man who knows how to love. He writes tenderly about his wife, Jill, his daughters Molly and Johanna and, most delightfully, he writes with sympathetic love about the many Africans he meets on his journeys, from Senegal, where he was a Peace Corps Volunteer, to Malawi and Cameroon, where he was a Fulbright scholar, and to Zimbabwe and Madagascar as a visiting academician. Hemminger is a poetic, masterful writer. The opening sentence in African Son is “The death of a child is the worst, and I felt somehow responsible.” He’s talking about . . .

A Breeze in Bulgaria by Bruce McDonald (2002-04) BookBrewer $21.29 (paperback), $6.99 (Kindle) 341 pages February 2012 Reviewed by Ken Hill (Turkey 1965-67) THEY HAD PLANNED THEIR RETIREMENT and a move from California to Colorado to be closer to family. But Bruce and Stormy McDonald happened to glance at a Peace Corps recruitment ad in the summer of 2001 that changed their plans — and their lives. Within a year they were in Bulgaria, their great new adventure had begun.  In ended too soon!  Not long after the beginning of their second year of service a frightening event intervened. Theirs was an extraordinary experience, shared masterfully in A Breeze in Bulgaria. They were highly experienced, strongly motivated, “older” Volunteers. Bruce had completed career #1 as an Air Force aviator, and #2 in the defense industry before he and Stormy were infected by the Peace Corps bug. Stormy had worked in . . .

This article about David Mather (Chile 1968–70) was published in Vermont’s Valley News on Saturday, June 23, 2012. • Peace Corps Service Inspires Novel by Dan Mackie David Mather has always tried to leave space on his to-do list for adventure. The Lyme resident can spin tales of motorcycle trips in Central America, an Indiana Jones-style flight deep into the Brazilian interior through a storm (details included “rivers of vomit”), a summer aboard a Norwegian tramp freighter crossing the Pacific, and hitchhiking in North Africa. His life in Lyme has been something of an adventure, too. When he arrived there in the early ’70s, he built a cabin in the woods one mile up an abandoned town road. “First I built the cabin, and then I had to figure out how to make a living,” he said. He wasn’t entirely ready for what was ahead. “I was a flatlander, as . . .

A Writer Writes [Peace Corps Volunteers often have experiences that follow them throughout their lives. Such was the case with Habib Diatta, who came into Leita Kaldi’s life in 1993 to tell her he taught at a school with 800 students and no latrines! She helped him to find funding and develop the project himself, in collaboration with local villagers, to provide sanitary facilities for his students. Habib didn’t stop there. In his rural school with no electricity, he dreamed of providing computers and training to schools throughout Senegal. When he was recruited to a university in Indiana, he realized his dream, founding Wings for West Africa, a non-profit organization that ships computers to every corner of Senegal. Nearly twenty years after meeting Habib, Leita is compelled to share his story.] Wings for West Africa by Leita  Kaldi (Senegal 1993-96) “At our school we have eight hundred students and no . . .

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 . . .