A captivating look at the sudden transformation of the Philippines by war.
In this lightly fictionalized memoir, the author recounts her parents’ courtship in the Philippines amid the chaos of World War II.
In the late 1930s, life in the Philippines is “idyllic,” as prosperous as it is peaceful, a cultural milieu richly described by author Morgan. Benjamin Maranan, a storeowner from Alitagtag, catches sight of the beautiful Adelaide Buendia at a festival in her hometown, Bauan. He’s smitten, but an introduction is impossible; Adelaide is vigilantly protected by her brother, Lucio. Later, Benjamin sees her picture in a magazine (she was photographed at a local festival), and he becomes obsessed with meeting her. He writes her letters weekly, and when she finally replies, their courtship officially begins. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor changes everything, however. President Manuel L. Quezon predictably declares his allegiance to the United States, and the Japanese promptly invade. At the time of the invasion, Benjamin is far from home in Baguio with a band of brothers and cousins, and they decide to make the trek back to the family in Batangas, a long journey that’s “perilous and unpredictable.” Morgan’s novelistic account of her father’s way home is riveting; it not only thrillingly conveys the danger Benjamin confronted, but also the endless resourcefulness and courage of the people of Batangas. The portrayal of the young couple’s burgeoning love is somewhat mawkish, however: “How can such a beautiful lady be unknown to so many young men? Where is she hiding, and where did she come from? Is she really from Sambat? Maybe not. Maybe she is from another barrio. I have to find out.” Nevertheless, the portrayal of the “uncertainties of time” that plagued the country is gripping. The plight of the Philippines following the bombing of Pearl Harbor is often neglected by writers and historians alike, and this is a welcome correction to that absence.
A captivating look at the sudden transformation of the Philippines by war.Pub Date: Aug. 14, 2023
ISBN: 9798985045819
Page Count: 316
Publisher: Kobbe Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 16, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The stormy career of a top Navy SEAL hotspur. Commander Marcinko, USN Ret., recently served time at Petersburg Federal Prison for conspiracy to defraud the Navy by overcharging for specialized equipment—the result, he says, of telling off too many admirals. It seems that his ornery and joyous aggression, nurtured by a Czech grandfather in a flinty Pennsylvania mining town, has brought him to grief in peace and to brilliance in war. Serving his first tour in Vietnam in 1966 as an enlisted SEAL expert in underwater demolition, Marcinko returned for a second tour as an officer leading a commando squad he had trained. Here, his accounts of riverine warfare—creeping underwater to Vietcong boats and slipping over their gunwales; raiding VC island strongholds in the South China Sea; steaming up to the Cambodian border to tempt the VC across and being overrun- -are galvanic, detailed, and told with a true craftsman's love. What did he think of the Vietcong? ``The bastards—they were good.'' His battle philosophy? ``...kill my enemy before he has a chance to kill me....Never did I give Charlie an even break.'' After the aborted desert rescue of US hostages in the Tehran embassy, Marcinko was ordered to create SEAL Team Six—a counterterrorist unit with worldwide maritime responsibilities. In 1983, the unit was deployed to Beirut to test the security of the US embassy there. Easily evading the embassy security detail, sleeping Lebanese guards, and the Marines, the SEALs planted enough fake bombs to level the building. When Marcinko spoke to ``a senior American official'' about the problem, the SEAL's blunt security advice was rejected, particularly in respect to car-bomb attacks. Ninety days later, 63 people in the embassy compound were killed by a suicide bomber driving a TNT-filled truck. Profane and asking no quarter: the real nitty-gritty, bloody and authentic. (Eight-page photo insert—not seen.)
Pub Date: March 2, 1992
ISBN: 0-671-70390-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Pocket
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 1992
Great fun.
The second installment of childhood recollections (after Opposite the Cross Keys, 1988) by mystery writer S.T. Haymon, who here evokes a sheltered 12-year-old's further encounters with life's earthier side.
Haymon's 1920's, upper-middle-class childhood revolved typically around school, home, loyal servants, and a pair of doting, well-educated parents—until age 12, when her father died and her mother decided to move to London. Refusing to accompany her, the precocious, comically self-confident Sylvia tried to limit this series of upheavals by insisting on remaining in Norfolk in the care of a favorite teacher—except that at the last minute her headmistress (already a sworn enemy) switched houses, arranging for two maiden schoolteachers to put Sylvia up in their house instead. Sylvia knew that the Misses Gosse and Locke were eccentric. What she didn't know was that the skinny, aggressive history teacher and the teary, puppy-like math professor were lesbians. Nor did she notice as Miss Locke's increasingly desperate infatuation with her began to lead the entire household toward destruction. Amusing characters abound—the gardener, Sylvia's only ally, whose faith in the value of a virgin's tips on the horse races led him to pay her for advice; the dour housekeeper who sang opera and downed bottles of gin; the art teacher's model who bewildered Sylvia with talk of "randy old dykes"; and the spiritual channel who informed her that her daddy was watching everything she did from heaven. Haymon's depiction of herself as an unusually clever, frequently petulant, and thoroughly practical young girl obsessed with filling her stomach while all sorts of passionate fireworks exploded around her evokes an era when secrets still existed and scandals were bursting to happen—and makes for slyly humorous, very British entertainment.
Great fun.Pub Date: Dec. 14, 1990
ISBN: 312-04986-2
Page Count: -
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
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