Green Fires [Paperback]

Marnie Mueller (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 15, 1999

Green Fires is the story of Annie Saunders, a disillusioned Kennedy-era Peace Corps volunteer, returning to Ecuador, hoping to come to terms with her traumatic experiences there. What she finds instead is a menacing and mysterious trail which she determinedly follows--ever deeper into the jungle--uncovering a sinister secret of international dimensions.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The politics of the rain forest, the fragile emotional state of a newly married couple and old-fashioned capitalist corruption are combined in Mueller's first novel, a historical romance that pushes against the boundaries of the genre. In 1969, Annie Saunders, an American and a Jew, and her new husband, German-born Kai Schmidt, are on their honeymoon in Ecuador, where she once worked as a Peace Corps volunteer. They soon find themselves taking a tortuous trip downriver to meet an eccentric German named Haberle, who lives deep in the rain forest and purportedly has befriended the indigenous tribes who are being napalmed by Somaxo, a multinational oil company that covets their territory. Paralleling the couple's journey into the political problems of the rain forest is Annie's private psychological journey through feelings of aggression toward her husband for his father's Nazi past, grief over her mother's suicide and confusion about her liberal beliefs. While Mueller presents the central relationship in realistic detail, she comes close to sentimentalizing the Indians and their lives in their eponymous "Eden." Conrad's Heart of Darkness provides the themes here, but the mysterious man at the center of the literal and psychological journeys is driven by pacifism rather than by nihilism.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

This is a very political novel about an environmental war and personal exploration. Left-wing activist Annie Sauders had been a Kennedy-era Peace Corps volunteer in Ecuador. In 1969, when the novel begins, she returns to Ecuador with her new husband, Kai. They travel deep into the rain forest, together with their local guide and eventual friend, Mingo, and find themselves in the midst of the struggle between multinational oil companies and indigenous peoples. As they become more and more involved in the tragedy of the rain forest, they also work through their own conflicts, both within themselves and with each other. Annie is Jewish; Kai is German, the son of a Nazi. Both had troubled childhoods. The characters are well drawn, and the novel has adventure, intrigue, and romance as well as politics. Mueller, like Annie, served with the Peace Corps in Ecuador; this is her first novel. Recommended for public libraries.
- Mary Margaret Benson, Linfield Coll. Lib., McMinnville, Ore.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 318 pages
• Publisher: Curbstone Books (April 15, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1880684594
• ISBN-13: 978-1880684597
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 1.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,594,739 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1.0 out of 5 stars Don't Bother, October 20, 2006

By 

Steve Moeller "Steve" - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Green Fires: Assult on Eden: A Novel of the Ecuadorian Rainforest (Hardcover)

I'd call this book "self indulgent". It seems more like therapy for the author than entertainment for the reader. I really wanted to like it and read the first 90 pages. I just moved too slow and didn't seem to be going anywhere.

Read Wizard of the Upper Amazon by Bruce Lamb, The World is as You Dream It by John Perkins or Diary of an Amazon Guide by Paul Beaver if you want to experience the Amazon. This book is boring.