Customer Reviews

American Taboo: A Murder in the Peace Corps

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

I enjoyed this book, though it was quite painful to read about how the Peace Corps as an institution failed the Gardner family. I served in the Peace Corps in the late 1970's in the South Pacific (though not in Tonga), and, like many former volunteers, I consider my time in the Peace Corps to be one of the seminal experiences in my life. I still have great respect for the Peace Corps and its mission, but in 1976 and 1977 the agency sadly put preservation of its image above achieving justice for Deborah Gardner. Gardner's killer-who can have any doubt that it was fellow volunteer Dennis Priven-was, to my mind, a very disturbed individual who brilliantly manipulated the Tongan legal system. The author makes almost incontrovertibly clear, however, that Priven would likely not have succeeded without the complicity (and, sometimes, active effort) of Peace Corps' officials. If you have no other reaction upon reading this book, you will be left with the feeling that a serious miscarriage of justice took place, and that our government facilitated Priven's release back into American society.

The book brought back many memories of Peace Corps training and day-to-day volunteer life. (I also did "staging" at the Hotel Californian, and it was uncanny how the author captured the essence of the place and the overseas pre-departure activities.) The author does a good job of conveying those details, and he is quick to acknowledge the wealth of PCV/Tonga diaries, letters, and journals that were available to him. He also conducted numerous interviews with returned volunteers and others for what appears to be a very well-researched book.

I didn't mind that the author injected himself into the story at times. It was interesting to follow how he conducted his research and how he overcame obstacles while investigating events that took place almost three decades ago. I also didn't mind the several asides, usually involving Wayne Gardner, Deborah Gardner's father (e.g., Wayne Gardner's moose hunting trip in Alaska). The extra material almost always shed light on key relationships in the book, especially the pivotal relationship between Deborah Gardner and her father.

So why not 5 stars? I agree with other reviewers who criticized the author's writing style. At times he is quite eloquent, but at other times he mangles syntax and uses run-on sentences. One newspaper reviewer also described him as "comma happy," and I'd have to agree. More colons, semi-colons, and, especially, periods would have helped. The author mentions that there may be other books published about these events, and I couldn't help thinking that there was a rush to publication of this book without the benefit of a good edit by the publisher. Grammar and punctuation problems aside, however, the book tells a powerful if supremely sad story and is well worth the read. The killer got away with murder, and there seems little that can be done legally after all these years about obtaining justice for Deborah Gardner. Though of little comfort to her family, a governmental investigation into how the Peace Corps handled the matter would ensure that the same thing never happens again. As a former Peace Corps volunteer who is proud of his service, I think this blot on the Peace Corps' record needs to be finally and fully brought out into the sunshine and that apologies are long overdue the Gardner family.

If I had to pick one word to describe American Taboo, it would be "compelling." Weiss shows us how far a professional reporter can go in creating scenes from a place that was long ago and far away. The book would be worth reading just to gain a sense of day-to-day Peace Corps life, when exotic gets overwhelmed by mundane.

But what fascinates Weiss is the old story of justice denied. A smart but geeky volunteer murders a beautiful girl. Everyone knows he's the killer.

But ironically, as Weiss points out, Deb the victim was always a private person who hadn't made close friends. Dennis, her killer, had a circle of close friends who supported him through pre-trial confinement and trial, even bringing him food and gifts.

And ironically the Peace Corps wanted to save its reputation. In defiance of the Agency's own rules, bureaucrats descended from Washington and a top-flight lawyer was hired to defend Dennis. Dennis was ultimately released to the US with a promise of long-term confinement in a mental institution. However, through legal loopholes, Dennis was allowed to go free. He ended up working for another US government agency, the Social Security Administration, in computers.

As in many true crime stories, there's some ambivalence about assigning blame. True, Dennis is a murderer. But he was doing everything but wearing a sign saying, "Danger! Get this man out of here!" He didn't like Tonga and didn't fit. His colleague had tried to report concerns to the Peace Corps country director, only to be turned away.

And this Director was hardly blameless. A political appointee, Mary had been an executive secretary and modeling agency director. She lacked management skills and cultural awareness. She created tension and resentment among volunteers, including both the inept Dennis and the competent Deborah.

Ultimately the story is about what happens when people feel they've hit bottom, as Dennis would. Denied a re-enlistment and spurned by Deb, he fell deeper into his own darkness. He was unable to feel and return the friendship that others generously extended. An Australian family allows him to use their washing machine each week; he cuts off the wife's hair while she's sleeping.

From all accounts, Dennis suffered a situational descent into paranoia. By Tongan justice, he should have been locked up for life.

Recent op-ed articles have raised questions about the function of imprisonment, and Weiss inadvertently presents the case against harsh sentences. Dennis never harmed anyone else, as far as we know, and went on to serve society as a useful citizen. Ironically, American Taboo offers a natural experiment: What happens when a murderer goes free?

In summary, American Taboo is a great page-turner, as gripping as any mystery or adventure novel. It's hard to put down. Yes, it's a bit long, and there are too many details, especially with regard to the trial. But in the end, the details are necessary to make the exotic setting seem real. And we can learn from this book, on many levels.

I had high hopes for this book, as I am former Peace Corps Tonga volunteer just three years removed from my time in the kingdom. The story of Deb Gardner's murder and the Peace Corps' role in essentially freeing her killer is a gem of a story, which makes it that much more of a letdown that Weiss couldn't do more with it. As I read through the sloppy text, eventually coming to the most anti-climactic confrontation one could imagine, I kept wishing that Jon Krakauer had gotten a hold of this story instead of this author. I also wished Weiss had dealt fully with the weirdness of his own attraction to the deceased Miss Gardner, or left it out completely. Would he have pursued this project at all had she been homely rather than the "most beautiful girl in Peace Corps"?

Former PC volunteers, especially from the Pacific, will probably enjoy the book for its ability to remind us of the islands and a few aspects of life as a volunteer. And the story itself is a good lesson in how the vaunted Peace Corps doesn't send only the best and brightest to represent America and give aid to the developing world. Some real nutcases are out there. I give Weiss some credit for a difficult task: writing about the Peace Corps without actually being a former volunteer.

Like other readers, I found the book in need of an editor--sadly, the same can be said of a great deal of recent US non-fiction.

The story is compelling and and as a former expat, I can speak to the oddness of living abroad. OTOH, it's never really clear that Dennis, the accused, is psychotic (one theatrical psychiatrist does not make a diagnosis). Few people who seek an overseas experience are driven to really problematic behavior, let alone murder--the problems in their lives usually precede such a move. Someone should have told him that "no" means "no", but that was only beginning to be recognized as a necessity in the 70s. The book is an object lesson of how bureaucracies, public or private, civilian or otherwise cover their backsides and how the process gets more dysfunctional when the regime is changing. The country director comes off as a ludicrous figure---totally out of her depth, and culturally incompetent. Her prim Republican manner makes her seem an unlikely candidate to support the accused murderer. But support him she does, going overboard and beyond rationality or even a close reading of the country director's handbook.

The asides didn't bother me as much as other reviewers. I wished we'd heard more about the dead girl's relationship with her mother and brother. The complexity of the relationship with the father, though, is interesting and would have benefited from better organization of the text. Instead, it comes at us in a helter skelter way. Oddly, the murderer is the character left the most to our imaginations. In an era when so much information is attainable, I would have expected to know more about his life after Tonga and, until the end, it's unclear whether he ever made it to Sibley Hospital. The choice of Sibley was an odd one because it's upscale general hospital on the edge of DC. St. Elizabeths or perhaps, a nice private psychiatric facility like Chestnut Lodge would have made more sense.

Still & all, its an interesting story and a good illustration of how things can go wrong, especially when a bureaucracy and hoplessly "out of depth" political appointees are involved. But then again, we have ample evidence of that in our daily papers.

Although this promises to be an exciting read and one to get outraged at the Peace Corps for, the writing is lacking. In the first half of the book, the lead up to the murder, there were too many people talked about in a meandering, meaningless way. I couldn't keep track of them. Then the horrible murder happens and we witness the courtroom. Again, more characters, more events, not much clarity as to what exactly is going on. In the end, the modern day reaction to this murder, there is absolutely no closure. Not that I am expecting the author to convict the murderer, I was just hoping for more insight into the Peace Corp or the people involved. Instead there is a long section of the author sticking himself into this story and befriending the murderer. Huh? Where did he come from? He is the author, not a character. Now he has put himself into the role of private investigator. How very strange.
In summary, I this book seems rushed with no real depth. That is too bad. This could be a compelling story with real world questions to be asked and answered at the end.

The 3 stars is only because the story is so fascinating and appalling. The writing is dreadful; Weiss alternates between unreadable run-on sentences and sentence fragments, as though he were writing this book by jotting down whatever odd tidbits happened to pop into his head at the moment. I really have to wonder to what depths today's writers (and editors, who are equally guilty here) have sunk, if writing this disjointed can make it to press.

Also, I found myself thinking that this might have been better suited for an extended magazine article, rather than a book. Weiss seems to have trouble at times sustaining his narrative, and the book seems frequently to wander around in a fog. He certainly doesn't bring the book to a satisfactory conclusion; when reading Weiss' speculations on the sanity, or lack thereof, of Dennis Priven, I was unconvinced by his arguments and in fact felt like I knew no more after I finished the book.

Which brings me to my biggest criticism here: why did Weiss choose to focus on the question of "how did he get away with it?" rather than the far more troubling question of "why did the Peace Corps move heaven & earth to protect a murderer, and then cover it up?" Certainly Weiss discusses the Peace Corps question, but not thoroughly, and certainly it is not the question on which he is primarily focused. I suspect part of this stems from Weiss' preference of doing his research through interviews (not unusual for a journalist) rather than wading through assorted archives looking for documents. If Weiss had been a trained historian rather than a journalist, I cannot help but suspect that he would have gone to the archives first, and then filled in the gaps with subsequent interviews. Sadly, this seems not to have happened, and the book suffers for it.

Because Weiss could not choose a single question upon which to focus, he fails to provide satisfactory answers for either question. He has probably blown it as far this subject is concerned; I doubt that another researcher will be able to revisit the Gardner murder at some future date and hope to get the cooperation he/she will need.

Thus, we are left with this book as the only one available on a subject very much worth reading about, so good luck readers. I just wish Weiss could have done a better job on this.

I am devastated that the Peace Corp a taxpayer funded entity allowed this outrage against a fellow member of the corp. Every administrator whoose incompetence made possible Deb's murder and Dennis's flight off Tonga should have been severly punished. I am especially disturbed by the actions of Mary George the corp's chief on Tonga.
How does George live with herself????????????
This book portrayed a horrible crime and is well researched but poorly written. Sentences are poorly structured and I was bored by all the trivia.
Overall, I would recommend the book as a real page turner.

If you're looking for a straight true-crime narrative, you'll find yourself at odds with this book. But when I finally got to the end of American Taboo, I flipped to the first page and started it over again. On second reading, it almost comes clear.

The facts, rendered bluntly, are disturbing, but we've heard them in many other contexts: A beautiful woman rejects an unstable man. Filled with a lethal mix of frustrated yearning and damaged pride, he murders her in a particularly gruesome way. Afterwards, he's completely unrepentant. Look at how she treated him, at how she'd used and discarded men. See his struggle, feel his torment. His important life has been disrupted--what a terrible, terrible thing.

But then, somehow, he goes free, and what do you know? He picks up with his life again. Just...like...that.

Weiss resists the temptation to frame this story as a simple clash of Wrong against Right. For most of the book, he tries instead to render the crime in a style that conveys the heady time and exotic locale as recalled by the now-middle-aged Peace Corps volunteers he tracked down all over the world.

Ultimately, this narrative strategy doesn't work. Weiss throws in far too many Tongan phrases--even if you were taking notes, you'd never catch them all. In the disjointed whirlwind of the first few chapters, he introduces scores of people who quickly vanish, only to return (first name only) later on. Who's Jon? Who's Judy? Who's Dave? Just forget about keeping the Tongan names straight. People and places form an unpronounceable blur of hard consonants, long vowels and random apostrophes.

That said, American Taboo is well worth the effort of reading. Stick with it; it will stick with you.

the author obviously did extensive research into this true story of murder in Tonga in 1976, but he appeared to have felt compelled to include every detail anyone ever told him, including hundreds of details that are completely and totally irrelevant to the story. it is difficult to imagine that this book had an editor of any skill. the author's "style" was extremely annoying, and i finished the book wishing that a better journalist had undertaken this effort.

I was a Peace Corps volunteer in Tonga from 1978 - 1980. My group arrived shortly after the murder but we we were told none of the details. Nevertheless "cultural sensitivity" was drilled daily -- though we were never quite sure. We had no idea how precarious the program really was as a result of Peace Corps' handling of the murder. Many, many questiones were answered. It's hard to believe Phill Weiss was not one of us because he captured the life and times of a Nuku'alofa volunteer in the late 70s.