A frank, well-intentioned but uneven account of volunteering in Peru.
A former Peace Corps worker recalls her time spent in 1960s Peru in this debut memoir.
Raised by devout Roman Catholic parents, LaTorre spent her early years in the cowboy town of Ismay, Montana, before relocating in her teens to California, where her social development “crept along at a slow creek’s pace.” Life changed in her 20s when the experience of living in Latin American cultures “awakened my body and soothed my restless soul.” In 1963, she joined a group of 20-something female students who spent their summer vacation “performing good works” among Mexico’s disadvantaged communities. Her time spent in Apaseo, where, among other tasks, she helped set up a library, spurred her to join the Peace Corps the following year. The memoir recounts her training in New York and Puerto Rico before being assigned to Peru with the intention of engaging in community development work. On her 22nd birthday, the author found herself journeying through the Andes Mountains on her way to the town of Abancay, where she helped provide health care and also fell in love with Antonio, a local college student who tested her Catholic beliefs regarding intimacy. LaTorre presents a forthright and candid voice. She openly discusses how she found Latin men “enticing” and a “constant distraction.” Yet despite this attraction, she was protective of her independence, influenced by the strong women she grew up around in Montana. But her commentary on gender roles in other societies is sometimes surprising. She writes: “Domestic issues might interest most of the town’s females, but food preparation, childcare, and who was dating whom didn’t always interest us. We couldn’t understand local females’ submissiveness to their men.” There is little consideration of the obstacles to women’s liberation outside of America. Descriptions of Indigenous people also rely on stereotypes of otherness: “Small, dark, leather-skinned Indians.” LaTorre’s story is one of a determined young woman keen to achieve her goals; her relationship with Antonio will have readers guessing how the romance will turn out. Illustrated with the author’s photographs, this bold memoir offers many rich details about Peru and the Peace Corps. But readers may find some of the author’s descriptions of the country’s Native societies lack nuance.
A frank, well-intentioned but uneven account of volunteering in Peru.Pub Date: Aug. 11, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-63152-717-3
Page Count: 328
Publisher: She Writes Press
Review Posted Online: June 4, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A juicy story with some truly crazy moments, yet Anderson's good heart shines through.
The iconic model tells the story of her eventful life.
According to the acknowledgments, this memoir started as "a fifty-page poem and then grew into hundreds of pages of…more poetry." Readers will be glad that Anderson eventually turned to writing prose, since the well-told anecdotes and memorable character sketches are what make it a page-turner. The poetry (more accurately described as italicized notes-to-self with line breaks) remains strewn liberally through the pages, often summarizing the takeaway or the emotional impact of the events described: "I was / and still am / an exceptionally / easy target. / And, / I'm proud of that." This way of expressing herself is part of who she is, formed partly by her passion for Anaïs Nin and other writers; she is a serious maven of literature and the arts. The narrative gets off to a good start with Anderson’s nostalgic memories of her childhood in coastal Vancouver, raised by very young, very wild, and not very competent parents. Here and throughout the book, the author displays a remarkable lack of anger. She has faced abuse and mistreatment of many kinds over the decades, but she touches on the most appalling passages lightly—though not so lightly you don't feel the torment of the media attention on the events leading up to her divorce from Tommy Lee. Her trip to the pages of Playboy, which involved an escape from a violent fiance and sneaking across the border, is one of many jaw-dropping stories. In one interesting passage, Julian Assange's mother counsels Anderson to desexualize her image in order to be taken more seriously as an activist. She decided that “it was too late to turn back now”—that sexy is an inalienable part of who she is. Throughout her account of this kooky, messed-up, enviable, and often thrilling life, her humility (her sons "are true miracles, considering the gene pool") never fails her.
A juicy story with some truly crazy moments, yet Anderson's good heart shines through.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2023
ISBN: 9780063226562
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Dey Street/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 5, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023
SEEN & HEARD
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
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