Diplomatic Baggage [Hardcover]

Brigid Keenan (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 21, 2005

When Sunday Times fashion journalist Brigid Keenan married the love of her life in the late Sixties, little idea did she have of the rollercoaster journey they would make around the world together - with most things going horribly awry while being obliged to keep the straightest face and put their best feet forward. For he was a diplomat - and Brigid found herself the smiling face of the European Union in locales ranging from Kazakhstan to Trinidad. Finding herself miserable for the first time in a career into which many would have long ago thrown the towel, she found herself asking (during a farewell party for the Papal Nuncio): was it worth it? As this stream of it-really-happened-to-me stories shows, it most certainly was - if only for our vicarious bewilderment at how exactly you throw a buffet dinner during a public mourning period in Syria, remain viable as a fashion journalist when taste-wise you are three seasons out of it and geographically a world away, make people believe that there are actually terrible things going on in paradise, be a good mother AND save some of the world's finest architecture from demolition - seemingly all simultaneously.

Editorial Reviews

Review

'Brigid Keenan vividly evokes both the oddities and loneliness, even today, of being the "other half" of a diplomat. Immediate and intimate, poignant and very funny; it is as if she is talking to the reader. Her eagle-eyed observation of human behaviour and far flung experiences made me laugh out loud.' -- Josceline Dimbleby 20041006 'Life is what you make of it -- you can't just sit there and let it happen to you -- you've got to grab opportunities with both hands, or you risk boredom at least, depression and deathbed regrets at worst. Women have not been raised to understand the importance of this. Brigid Keenan rams the message home with hilarity. This is an important book, written by a very funny writer.' -- Shirley Conran 20041101 'Bridget Jones' mother meets Katie Hickman's Daughters of Britannia ... I've a hunch this is going to do very well.' -- Bookseller 20041105 'The verve, the fun and the disasters of a life spent trekking round the world is vividly conveyed.' -- Publishing News 20041112 'The story sparkles, flies, delights. You love Keenan, the weepy, flighty, funny bit of diplomatic baggage but a part of your heart goes out to AW, her partner, who puts up and shuts up. But what makes this book special is how with a light touch Keenan exposes the dark corners, the frustrations, the dilemmas of those who go forth to represent their country. The grand houses and lifestyles hide so much, silence so many. But not Bridget Keenan.' -- Yasmin Alibhai-Brown 20041101 'There are a handful of books I should dearly love to have written myself, and this is one of them. By the end, I felt as if I had lived a whole new life in an unfamiliar and wondrous world that lies somewhere between that of Arthur Grimble's Pattern of Islands and Gerald Durrell's My Family and Other Animals. Like all the best memoirs, Brigid's book is endlessly engaging, full of delightful details, very funny and sometimes rather sad.' -- Christopher Matthew, author of Now We are Sixty 20041101 'I am furious! Fancy sending me Bridge's book when I'm so busy. I've just spent three whole hours chortling, giggling and wheezing my way through it -- and nary a pot washed or a keyboard key pressed all morning! Very few books these days make me laugh out loud -- this one provoked loud hoots at the rate of three per page. It's the funniest thing I've read since Jilly Cooper stopped writing properly and turned to sex and four-letter words. If this isn't a runaway best-seller I'll run away myself and live in Kazakhstan.' -- Mary S Lovell, author of The Mitford Girls 20041101 'What fun! Brigid Keenan has written these anecdotal memoirs with a seasoning of undiplomatic mischief that is beguiling and unexpected in the wife of a peripatetic diplomat. Even in postings as remote and unlikely as Kazakhastan, or as bland and unpromising as Belgium, Keenan is incapable of boredom and therefore, she cannot be boring. Particularly, her delight in the antiquities of the Middle East and the old city of Damascus is knowledgeable and infectious. She is the person you hope will be seated next to you at a dinner party: a companion of experience, vivacity and charm. To read her book is to meet her and to meet her is to be enthralled.' -- Irma Kurtz, Cosmopolitan agony aunt 20041101 'Brigid may have sobbed her way round the world in her diplomat husband's wake but her reward -- and ours -- is an inexhaustible stream of ludicrous events and witty observations. Her book has the authentic voice of a born storyteller and a very funny writer.' -- Lesley Garner, author of How to Survive as a Wo 20041101 'A wonderfully funny, mischievous account of the adventures and travails of a diplomatic "spouse". It really did make me laugh out loud, startling the cat. Brigid Keenan is quite as hilarious a comic invention as Bridget Jones, only she's REAL.' -- Julie Christie 20041101 'For anyone with an ambition to build a career in the diplomatic corps (this) should be required reading.' -- Public Servant 20050408 'With a glorious sense of the ridiculous, she depicts herself as a hyperventilating hysteric, who sobs her doom-ridden fantasies into reality.' -- The Spectator 20050430 'Insightful and extrememly entertaining' -- Traveller 20050601 'A must read' -- Living Abroad Magazine 20050601 'Light-hearted and eminently readable ... a vivacious and engaging dialogue with the reader ... She brings to life her experiences by painting vivid images' -- Music Week 20050701 'Hilarious and engaging ... an entertaining account which is hard to put down' -- Orient Express Magazine 20050701 'Never let it be said that the life of a diplomat's wife is totally boring ... a very entertaining book' -- Writing Magazine 20050701 'Dull this book certainly is not!' -- Tablet 20050401 'Glorious' -- Publishing News 20050812 'Keenan, I suspect, was quite possibly put on this planet with the express purpose of writing [her memoir] ... A wonderful picaresque take on the travails of expat life, and an absolutely delicious read ... There are not many books that have actually made me cry from laughing, but this is one of them' -- Katie Hickman, Sunday Times 20050220 'Vogue loves ... Diplomatic Baggage' -- Vogue 20050220 'Brigid writes like a dream ! fabulous' -- Joanna Lumley 20041101 'This is an important book, written by a very funny writer.' -- Shirley Conran 20041101 'A wonderfully funny, mischievous account of the adventures and travails of a diplomatic "spouse".' -- Julie Christie 20041101 'Her eagle-eyed observation of human behaviour and far flung experiences made me laugh out loud.' -- Josceline Dimbleby 20041006 'The story sparkles, flies, delights.' -- Yasmin Alibhai-Brown 20041101 'Brigid's book is endlessly engaging, full of delightful details, very funny and sometimes rather sad.' -- Christopher Matthew, author of Now We Are Sixty 20041101 'It's the funniest thing I've read since Jilly Cooper stopped writing properly and turned to sex and four-letter words.' -- Mary S Lovell, author of The Mitford Girls 20041101 'She is the person you hope will be seated next to you at a dinner party: a companion of experience, vivacity and charm. To read her book is to meet her and to meet her is to be enthralled.' -- Irma Kurtz, Cosmopolitan agony aunt 20041101 'An inexhaustible stream of ludicrous events and witty observations.' -- Lesley Garner, author of How to Survive as a Wo 20041101 'It looks as if John Murray has found another Katie Hickman in Brigid Keenan's Diplomatic Baggage' -- Publishing News 'Quarterly Highlights' 20040806 'A fast and funny account of life on the move' -- Image 20050205 'A witty, funny, touching book full of riveting anecdotes. Part-memoir, part-manual, part-travelogue, part-diary and wholly delicious ...if this book doesn't leave Brigid Jones in the ha'penny place, I'll eat my furry hat.' - Polly Devlin. -- Image - 20050301 'Thirty years of far-flung postings later, she has acquired enough farcical experiences to make this memoir irresistible.' -- You - Mail on Sunday 20050227 'It's possibly the first time the travails of the envoy's family life have been so wittily spelled out.' -- Diplomat 20050503 'She is consistently herself, an observant journalist with a beady eye for local eccentricities ... Life with Brigid Keenan could never be boring.' -- Country Life 20050324 'Deliciously effervescent' -- Times 20060701 'Perfect tone ! surprising, astute, brilliantly observed and very human' -- Ahdaf Soueif, The Guardian 20060701

About the Author

Brigid Keenan has worked on Nova, edited sections of the Sunday Times and contributed a regular column to Punch and Sainsbury's Magazine. The author of four previous books, she is married to the EU's man in Kazakhstan.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: John Murray (February 21, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0719567254
• ISBN-13: 978-0719567254
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.4 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,621,008 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Funny & hilarious, August 20, 2007

By 

Stephanie CHEUNG (Hong Kong) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Diplomatic Baggage: The Adventures of a Trailing Spouse (Paperback)

Funny & hilarious writing. Basically the postings are presented in a chronological manner, but at times the author jumps to describe something happened in another posting which is a bit confusing.

In the first chapter, the author shows that a diplomat wife's life is not as glamorous & "prestigious" as the general public would think. I can understand the depressed feeling brought by the cycle of loneliness, homesickness, language barrier, making new friends, getting used to a place and then leaving local friends for the next posting.

But reading on, you'll find that actually she's not THAT miserable & bored, as she'd made lots of new friends in all postings, gone to & organized dinner parties, initiated a project in saving rundown historical buildings, organized fund raising campaigns, written a few books and a newspaper column, had weekend excursions to archaeological sites & interesting places, and even designed her own pattern of dyed cloth to sell!

Which made the first chapter quite odd. By her feelings & behaviour (eg crying all day, having argument with her diplomatic husband), you would think she's a young & immature girl just married to a diplomat sent to Almaty. But NO! This is in fact the then current posting after nearly 30 yrs of overseas postings. So why did she still feel so miserable & sad? It's hard for the reader to reconcile this with such an experienced "trailing spouse".

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Should've stuck to photography, October 17, 2010

By 

nonfictionfan - See all my reviews

This review is from: Diplomatic Baggage: The Adventures of a Trailing Spouse (Paperback)

While seemingly self-deprecating, this author manages to insult every culture other than her own and paint a very clear picture of herself as a spoiled, prejudiced, ignorant woman.

The flagrant anti-Semitism is the worst aspect of the book, so prevalent I didn't want to finish except to see whether she'd redeem herself at all (nope), but all the troubles-with-the-incompetent-help anecdotes paint a very clear picture of an anachronistic, selfish woman who should definitely have stuck to her shopping.

The worst story of all: the day a woman flagged her car down because her husband was dying of a heart attack, and the author didn't take him to the hospital because his nose was running and that disgusted her.

The positive reviews excerpted in the book are all quotes from her friends and social circle who should have read it first. In sum: not worth the 1-cent used-book price.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great description of the life- politics aside, June 27, 2006

By 

Diplo Spouse too - See all my reviews

This review is from: Diplomatic Baggage (Hardcover)

Being a diplomatic spouse myself, I really enjoyed this book and could relate to many of the feelings she had and many of the experiences. It is her memoir and she is clearly an intelligent woman and entitled to her opinions but I found the tone and some of her political comments particularly galling. Politics aside, it was a fun read.