Going Up Country [Hardcover]

Coyne (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 9, 1994

Previously unpublished travel essays by Peace Corps workers chronicle journeys into such diverse regions as Ethiopia, Peru, the Caribbean, Kenya, and the Amazonian jungle.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Thirteen former Peace Corps volunteers share their past experiences abroad in this collection of essays. Their individual writing styles and elucidating narratives capture the Zeitgeist , culture, and personality of a variety of locations. One writer returns to Tanzania to search for students he taught three decades earlier. Another recounts a journey sitting aboard a crated lion on a trade truck in Somalia. Whether the authors describe their adventures tackling Mount Cameroon, observing Kenyan life in a small village, participating in Mexican festivals, or rediscovering Japan, the reader will delight in the detailed observations and the evident enthusiasm of the writers on their journeys. This compendium offers slice-of-life accounts from various time periods and a diverse choice of locations, which allow one to explore vicariously, yet briefly, a destination through the eyes of seasoned travelers. For popular collections.
- Jo-Anne Mary Benson, Osgoode, Ontario
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

Novelist Coyne (Child of Shadows, Fury, etc.), once a Peace Corps volunteer in Ethiopia, edits a sheaf of lively essays close to his heart. Thirteen former Peace Corps writers, all professionals with published books to their credit, are asked to return to their country of service or another country in which they lived, and write about what is true and lasting, what has changed, and what a traveler really needs to know about the place. Among the countries the writers dig into are Kenya, Peru, Somalia, Japan, Senegal, Mexico, Cameroon, Grenada, Hungary, Tanzania, and Micronesia. Mike Tidwell burrows excitingly into the heart of the Petroecuadorean darkness in search of Randy Borman, a 36-year-old Caucasian born in the jungle to missionary parents, who went native, became chief of a remote tribe of Cofan Indians, and was fighting the oilmen killing the rain forest--in outline, a very Conradesque character. In ``Beauty and the Beach,'' Bob Shacochis, a volunteer to St. Vincent and St. Kitts in the Caribbean, describes what's happened to the islands as moneymen have tried to organize the beaches of paradise. Jeff Taylor's ``School of Exiles'' tells of teaching English in Hungary while nearby Yugoslavia deteriorates and blood flows along the border. In ``Piquing the Spirits,'' Mary-Ann Tiron Smith goes into the Federal Republic of Cameroon and from the rain forest climbs Mount Cameroon with a movie-location scout--looking for a site for a remake of Tarzan--who contracts Dengue fever and has to be stretched out. Immensely diverse, often clever, unfailingly gripping as volunteers reach through barriers of tradition and culture to touch other lives, while a series of epiphanies blows their minds clear as a moonscape. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Scribner; 1St Edition edition (March 9, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684196298
• ISBN-13: 978-0684196299
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.5 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,536,286 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Humor, pathos and connection, September 9, 2004

By 

Lynn Harnett (Marathon, FL USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Going Up Country (Hardcover)

Is it the Peace Corps experience or the sort of people who join the Peace Corps that make this anthology such a lively, empathetic and observant collection of travel pieces?

The styles vary - from the humor and poignancy of Mary-Ann Tirone Smith's account of climbing Mount Cameroon and getting Dengue Fever near the end of her stay in the 60s, to the contemplative melancholy of John Givens' half fearful return to mystical Kyoto, where he had gone to lick his wounds and live after his Peace Corps stint in Korea. But the quality of the writing is exceptional - intelligent and engaging throughout.

Thirteen former volunteers and professional writers were asked to return to countries of service and evaluate changes. They accepted the challenge with varying interpretations.

Mike Tidwell opens the collection in the back of an airplane, lost over the Ecuadorian jungle, preparing family messages for the Black Box. He's on the trail of a real-life version of Conrad's Kurtz, a white-American chief of an Indian forest tribe menaced by big oil. And he finds him. Funny, biting and bleak, this is one of the book's best pieces though it has little to do with his service in Peru.

Bob Shacochis revisits his youthful bravado on the beaches of the Caribbean, bringing his ironic, irreverent eye to bear on the attractions of nude sunburning and the juxtaposition of tourists and fishermen.

Susan Lowerre, deeply reflective, returns to Senegal after five years bearing gifts for the village, and fending off pleas for help in emigrating to the U.S.

Richard Wiley, a '60s Korea volunteer, goes to research a novel in Kenya. Disturbed by Western-style corruption in Nairobi, he's dazzled by a photo safari with a guide of mythic competence.

Jeanne D'Haem tells of an encounter with a lion and a bandit in Somalia 20 years ago.

This is a collection brimming with life and wonderfully reflective intelligence. A brief intro before each essay describes contributors' other books - and this anthology should attract new readers to all of them.