EMERGENCY SEX: AND OTHER DESPERATE MEASURES [Bargain Price] [Paperback]

Kenneth Cain (Author), Heidi Postlewait (Author), Andrew Thomson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 25, 2006

A new kind of war requires a new kind of war story. This scorching, devastatingly honest memoir is a first-of-its-kind confession of love, friendship, and betrayal of ideals from civilians who volunteered to be on the front lines.

In the early 1990s, three young people attracted to UN peacekeeping for very different reasons cross paths in Cambodia. Heidi, a new York social worker on the run from a marriage gone bust, is looking for an adventure. Andrew is a young doctor seeking to save lives. Ken is fresh from Harvard Law and full of idealism.

The UN organizes Cambodia's first democratic elections, and Phnom Penh is the scene of wild parties, as the international community celebrates the end of the Cold War. There the three become friends for life.

Propelled by success in Cambodia, the US and UN sponsor peacekeeping missions to Somalia, Haiti, and Bosnia. Ken and Heidi find themselves together in Somalia. They dance on their rooftop to Jimi Hendrix while helicopters buzz overhead so close they feel the heat of the exhaust. "You're listening to 99.9 FM Mogadishu—Rockin' the Dish," American Armed Forces Radio announces, "Keep your head down and the volume up."

But after the infamous Black Hawk Down incident when eighteen US Army Rangers were killed in a firefight with Somali militias, a chain reaction of violence breaks loose. As the trio's missions unravel, their bond tightens. Andrew is sent to Haiti, to Bosnia, and then Rwanda where he finds Ken, investigating the mass grave of genocide. Heidi's journey is unforgettable—a rare woman in a man's world of conflict and war.

The three friends' voices mingle to paint an indelible picture—suffused with tenderness and unexpected humor—of life, love, and death in the world's most dangerous places. By day they struggle to bring order out of chaos; by night they use revelry, sex, each other—desperate measures from faith to flesh and everything in between—to find a human connection in a terrifying world. Graphic, lyrical, and astonishingly urgent, Emergency Sex and Other Desperate Measures is a celebration of the strength of the human spirit—and of the gritty power of friendship to keep you alive.

--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Ah, to be young, Western and ambitious in a war zone. It's the early 1990s, and Cain and Postlewait are two American U.N. employees sent to Cambodia to help the country rebuild itself after two decades of war and genocide. Thomson is a New Zealandâ€"trained doctor who has already been there for a short while, patching up limbs shattered by land mines and looking for a corner of the world to save. The three meet during the U.N.'s efforts to install democracy in one of the unlikeliest places. Idealism, financial need, thirst for adventure and the desire to be a part of history bring them there, and the high they get from doing their work keeps them flitting around the globe, looking for hot spots to help cool down. The trio's early success in Southeast Asia is only added encouragement, as they follow their own intertwining paths through the wars and killings of the 1990s. From Cambodia, Somalia and Haiti, to Bosnia, Rwanda and Liberia, Cain, Postlewait and Thomson find death, sex, bureaucratic betrayal, sex, liberation from their pasts and seamy, regret-tainted sex amid the body parts and rotting flesh. Infuriating, heart-wrenching and well written, their tale is compelling both as a bottom-up look at U.N. peacekeeping efforts during the 1990s and a testimonial from the people who put their lives and sanity on the line for the sake of a simple ideaâ€"peace. 16 pages of b&w photos not seen by PW.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist

At the beginning of the 1990s, the authors, who did not know each other, came together in, of all places, Phnom Penh, Cambodia. There was the Harvard Law graduate who didn't want to be just another corporate lawyer; the New York social worker who saw her chance to make a difference slipping away; the missionary doctor looking for the best way to use his skills to help the people who need him most. They all came to Cambodia as part of the UN peacekeeping mission, and there they became friends, colleagues, and much more. The book is about people who went somewhere for all the right reasons and wound up facing challenges they never knew existed. The story is vividly told, almost tactile in its details. Many of the book's images--of poverty, desolation, abuse--are difficult to forget. For the authors, it was an experience that enriched them beyond measure. This is a unique and rewarding book, a mix of memoir, history, travel, and personal analysis. David Pitt
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Miramax (October 25, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1401359663
• ASIN: B0014JUGXC
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (72 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #984,727 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

36 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Don't Miss the Point!, November 28, 2004

By 

Dr. Dan (Tel Aviv) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Emergency Sex and Other Desperate Measures: A True Story From Hell On Earth (Hardcover)

This is an astonishingly honest description of what happens to people from a sheltered Western background who suddenly have to cope with some of the most horrifying aspects of the world we find ourselves in. As you read it, look at the situations they find themselves in, and try to imagine how you would respond. Of course you'd criticize (often justly) the chiefs above you, but that doesn't mean that you'd do a better job. Don't read it as a political diatribe but as individuals trying to protect themselves and still do something when nothing can be done. I've worked in these and similar situations for twenty years, and have known many people like these three. Often you won't like them, because of the psychological coping mechanisms they have and the personalities they have developed that helps them through the morass.

THe sexual elements that run through the story--particularly Heidi's narrative--are one way of responding to death: by engaging in one of the most life-affirming acts there is. I've known people who, in the face of death, suddenly need 'emergency' sex to prove they are alive. I'm glad Heidi had the honesty to tell this side of the story, regardless of the consequences. I can't criticize her because I know many people who have many relationships for far worse reasons!

This isn't a book that should be read for its political position, for the 'truth' about what 'really happened'. For example, I disagree strongly with Ken about whether the Rwandan Genocide could have been stopped--and I was next door in Burundi watching it happen. He doesn't mention that the French sent troops in to reinstall the Hutu government, that they found it an impossible situation, and withdrew to the quietest corner of the country. But these are quibbles, and reflect our differing perception of the situation. I'd bet he and I could come to a common ground in a few minutes in a bar over a beer.

But get back to the point. This isn't a political expose, it's a psychological one, and it is the best book I've read that grapples with this issue. I know. I've been there.

25 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Never made it to Mogadishu but always wanted to go?, June 30, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Emergency Sex and Other Desperate Measures: A True Story From Hell On Earth (Hardcover)

This book is a gripping read--an alternately fun and horrifying, sexy and perverse look at what it means to be a UN Peacekeeper. If you're someone who is intrigued by war zones but self-protecting enough to keep yourself out of them, these three authors take you there. The story is one giant adventure, related with mirth, honesty, and a healthy dose of humility. I love the authors for not foisting a political agenda, for being honest about their missteps, their passions, and the persistent question of whether it's redemptive or even worthwhile to stick three fingers in the dyke of global poverty and oppression. I found it more illuminating--and far more engaging--than any policy-oriented or historical rendering of the conflicts in Cambodia, Haiti, Somalia and Bosnia.

35 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars powerful, moving, important and timely, June 21, 2004

By 

"catherineo" (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Emergency Sex and Other Desperate Measures: A True Story From Hell On Earth (Hardcover)

Here's a book for anyone who'd like to learn something about what's going on around the globe, in human language--not development jargon, not bulleted press notes, not preachy moralistic speaches, but real human language, from real people, who lived ten years of their lives in some of the world's toughest places, and who lived, loved and lost in those places. A gripping, moving, funny account.

I used to work with the UN myself, and the experiences that the authors write about are in some ways familiar (and in other ways, totally unfamiliar). This is not just a book about UN scandals or failures, as the media (and some reader reviews) suggest. This is largely, and maybe more to the point, a coming-of-age story, about three young people who confront their own life values and beliefs. It will make you think about your own role in the world -- and the roll those who are in positions of relative power, who have been given the "official" authority to proclaim moral judgement over the globe's hot spots. This is an important, moving book, that's sad in some parts, but also immensely rewarding.