An American diplomat in Tanzania during the Cold War confronts her moral reservations about big-game poaching in this historical novel. 

Diana Forrest returns to diplomatic work after an extended hiatus. She left her previous post to marry a “hot shot foreign correspondent,” but the relationship ultimately failed. She accepts a new job as a foreign service officer at the U.S. Embassy in Tanzania, which, during this era, amounts to engaging in a battle with Soviet operatives to disseminate successful political narratives among the locals. But her attention is also gripped by the feral world of safaris and of a savanna full of volatile predators—it’s a world that both terrifies and excites her and one that novelist Sharpe (Undertow, 2014, etc.) stirringly depicts. Andrew, her subordinate at work, is a veteran tour guide and gives Diana her first experience with the Tanzanian wild. But he’s also an enthusiastic hunter, and she wrestles with her misgivings about the recreational slaughter of animals. At one point, she reports her moral dilemma to a friend when Andrew asks her to drive on one of his expeditions: “I don’t know what to do. My conscience resists. Yet, driving or not, I’ll be eating the bush meat, so what’s the difference?” It turns out that big-game poaching, especially for ivory to be sold on the black market, is ubiquitous, and she suspects that Andrew may be involved in a smuggling operation. The situation becomes even more complicated as a romantic relationship flowers between them.  Sharpe deftly braids together two interlocking storylines that deal, respectively, with the ungovernable Tanzanian bush and the tangled world of political bureaucracy. The author writes from a deep reserve of personal experience—like the book’s protagonist, she was an foreign service officer in Tanzania—and that knowledge endows the narrative with a sense of authenticity. The diplomatic storyline provides readers with an engrossing look into the world of strategic misinformation; for example, the Soviets are said to have once spread propaganda that the AIDS virus was created in a laboratory in Maryland. Also, Sharpe’s buoyant, cheeky prose memorably captures Diana’s illicit relationship with Andrew, who’s not only a colleague, but a married man: “We managed like lovers in a French farce, exercising extreme vigilance to avoid comical hallway encounters with people we knew—the complication being that, between us, we knew most every one at the conference.” Diana is revealed as an intriguing mix of contradictions—a savvy political operative who’s also romantic and who’s fiercely independent but achingly lonely. Diana is also clearly taken by Andrew; at one point, she fretfully wonders if she’s “become a Cold-War propagandist in bed with petty poachers.” The story’s most tantalizing element is its moral aspect, as it interrogates the defensibility of hunting amoral beasts with great nuance without a hint of dogmatic proselytizing. Overall, this is a thoughtful, provocative tale that, in the spirit of Iris Murdoch’s work, raises urgent questions while also resisting facile answers. 

A shrewdly written and intellectually arousing tale. 

Two novellas and a short story that address ordinary lives with grace and efficiency.

In the first, titular novella in Sharpe’s (The Danger is Seduction, 2013, etc.) collection, a group of older, divorced female friends commiserate about men, marriage, grown children, spirituality and the future of their intertwining lives in Santa Fe, N.M. Natalie is the sexy, confident one; Joey, the narrator, is cautious and reflective; Dana often makes wise quips; Juliet is the mystic searcher; and Nan is simply down-to-earth. As Joey dips a toe into the dating pool, she finds that romance in middle-age is as tricky a terrain as the hiking trails around the famed, artsy city. When Nan suffers a heart attack, her friends rally around her in a show of heartwarming support. The second novella, Dangling Woman, concerns Penelope, whose husband recently fell from a chairlift and, after a period of unconsciousness, died. The local prosecutor was a friend of the deceased and has dreams of making it big in Washington, D.C., so he goes after Penelope, accusing her of pushing her husband from the lift after a spat. Afraid for her future, Penelope finds that her own children aren’t the unwavering supporters she assumed they would be, and that politics in Santa Fe may be more complex than she anticipated. The short story, “Senior Moments,” is a gentle meditation on the relationship between a grandmother and her grandson, in which the child’s youthful energy manages to both revitalize and exhaust the older woman. Sharpe’s prose style is straightforward and easy to read, and her dialogue is refreshingly believable. The descriptions of New Mexico’s landscape and various flora and fauna (“The slopes she can see from where she stands are still in pristine winter whites”) give the stories a unique flavor and also a universality that makes the characters’ stories familiar and relatable.

An honest, entertaining trio of stories that focus on women’s trials and friendships. 

A deeply felt, intelligently observed collection of poetry.

In her latest book of poems, Sharpe (A Partial Rainbow Makes No Sense, 2012) invites readers to look at things from a different angle, whether she’s describing “Vegas from the Air” as a “luminous web” in her opening poem or pointing out that “Fish with hooks / caught in their jaws, / have their own fish stories” in “Hooks.” In plainspoken, accessible language, these free-verse poems explore the mysteries of the human condition—what torments and obsesses us—from the mundane demands of work to spiritual inquiry into the sublime. Whatever her subject, Sharpe’s gifts of description and sly humor provide welcome insights: “Dumb / is smart / for oracles. / They sit. / They smile. / They dissemble. / No one / leaves / dissatisfied.” Like poet Eliza Griswold, Sharpe’s travels around the world as a journalist inform many of her pieces; she looks to Egypt, Java, Russia, India and other locales for inspiration. Her poems suggest not only the excitement of a globe-trotting life, however, but also its consequences: In “After Visitation in Jakarta,” for example, she struggles to say goodbye to a child who hates “flying so far, / alone,” and for whom “home’s / with him, your Dad.” The moving “Accident” revisits the death of a “silly little sister” in a car wreck, wishing that “we could open a skull / like a black box after a plane’s / gone down.” In the concluding lines of the collection’s final poem, when Sharpe writes, “oh when can I put down roots / I want to go down deep / before I die,” it seems she’s already found the home she so longs for—in her poems, where she indeed digs deep. This collection’s glimpses into her inner life make for an unsettlingly relatable and moving read.

A pitch-perfect book of reflections and hard-won wisdom that proves Sharpe’s merits as a poet. 

Sharp, incisive fictional stories about women finding unknown strengths as they battle with the powerful men in their lives.

Sharpe (Baraka: The Indus Valley Poems, 2012, etc.) treats her readers to a novella and six short stories in this thought-provoking collection. In the titular piece, Elena Swift, a diplomat, receives her new assignment: working at the embassy in Lagos, right next to Bar Beach. As she’s been warned, her new surroundings are replete with danger and unseemly characters. Yet she’s determined to remain brave and stick it out, though her will is tested almost daily since danger seems to lurk behind every corner in her new neighborhood. In a story told in snippets that offer glimpses of the dark life in Bar Beach, Elena’s bravery shines through as she reaches out to the locals, eventually feeling at home in her dark surroundings. In “The Honeymoon is Over,” two journalists honeymooning in Seville have their peace disrupted when a thug on a motorcycle snatches the wife’s purse. The moment shakes the couple, causing tension that ruins their good spirits and raises questions about the role of protector in relationships. Relationships and roles are explored further in “Indigo and Pepper Soup” as Ellen, an entrepreneur who designs her own jewelry, and her husband, Jim, navigate their conflicting needs. Ellen’s designs are attracting notice, but Jim feels overshadowed and skeptical of her attention. This point of contention is echoed in “Immersion,” where once more, a woman’s repressed yet vital creativity emerges despite a man’s efforts. Tony, who’s “generous with things, but not with time,” is inconsiderate of Marybeth’s needs; despite her protests, he puts his career before hers. But this soon unlocks the buried writer inside her. Told with vivid detail and compelling characters, each short story shows a woman emancipating herself. The fresh, inspiring tales celebrate the importance of freedom and the role it plays in a woman’s life.

An impressive collection that realistically depicts women finding their way in a man’s world.

An academic and foreign service officer pens her second book of poems about Pakistan and the fate of Pakistani women.

Many readers know about the tribulations of Pakistani women solely through the story of Malala Yousufzai, the 15-year-old girl shot in October 2012 by a Taliban gunman for advocating for education for girls in her country. This collection presents a complex, richly textured exploration of the topic. It’s part a celebration of Pakistan, its layered past and tragic present, and part an agonized revelation and rejection of Pakistani treatment of women. Sharpe decries the arrogance of males who, through custom and cruel tradition, “suffocate daughters and wives / for the crime of being female / for the sin of having eyes / and lips and minds.” She does not cloak her poems in feminist rhetoric, however, instead presenting a nuanced and compassionate vision that yearns for a moral center to guide and restore Pakistan to its profound, lost beauty. In the poem “Static,” Sharpe celebrates how “those muezzins of temperate times / poured balm on the wounds of life.” Now, she writes, the call to prayer has been replaced by loudspeakers that carry the crackling, wired-up rants of a debased clergy that show neither love nor empathy. The author is a careful observer, reveling in the richness of juxtaposition and stark contrast; she writes of a Muslim Sufi shrine bedecked in marigolds and a Hindu temple violated by the “piss of desecrating boys.” But she also has a well-tuned ear for the subtle rhythms that accent the brutal Pakistani streets she conveys. This small book of verse will likely yield many delights for readers who want to glimpse the inner heart of Pakistan. This fiery, compassionate collection is introduced by the author’s friend, fellow poet Fahmida Riaz, winner of a Human Rights Watch/Hammett-Hellman award.

A tough, sensuous collection of poems about Pakistan.  

In this collection, a poet with a background in diplomacy and academia takes on topics both global and personal.

If a reader were to pick up this collection and flip to a random poem in its first half, he or she might peg Sharpe (Coming and Going Love, 2010) as a poet with plenty to say about violence and poverty, iniquity and inequality. A peek into the book’s second half, however, might give a reader the impression of a finely focused writer tuned to appreciate subtle social exchanges and their implications. So which is Sharpe? A full reading of this collection—which is the American version of her 2002 collection The Deadmen and Other Poems—reveals a complex mix of both types of poetry. The voice that laments suffering and military action gets blended with a more humorous voice that muses on bathroom lines and artificial knees. Readers, as they make their way through this collection, soon find it reasonable for the same voice to refer to God as “a connoisseur of corpses, slashed or shot or hamburgered” and snail slime as “traceries of silver.” The poet’s voice is critical but tinged with hope; her words are sharp but chosen wisely. She seems to see something complete beyond life’s fragments—the idea that a world with war, poverty and inequity may not make sense, but like a partial rainbow, there’s still a touch of beauty in its imperfection.

A varied but cohesive collection that nicely balances the big and small pictures.