In his new collection, Jacobs explores the spiritual territory he knows so well, South America. In "Two Dead Indians," a dying Paraguayan veteran of the Chaco War, visited by ghosts of his Bolivian enemies, relives one unexplainable night in the desert, sixty years past. The title story finds a grownup victim of a government-run "school for girls" in quiet confrontation with the school's old and broken director. Jacobs's characters are inundated by their unrecorded and recorded histories, the press of their Western ambitions and the gravity of their traditional beliefs. The modernity their societies hold out like a taunting promise seems self-destructive. Yet they prevail, at times brilliantly interweaving their psychic selves with the difficult beauty of their circumstances.
Book Description
In a remarkably short time, Mark Jacobs has published four dozen stories in periodicals ranging from The Atlantic Monthly to Southwest Review. In 1994 he published a collection entitled A Cast of Spaniards, which received complimentary reviews, including a starred Publishers Weekly that cited its "exquisite craftsmanship." In 1996 he published the novel Stone Cowboy, on the basis of which Robert Olen Butler predicted he would "become our own Graham Greene."
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Psychological dilemmas play out over the wide and scarred terrain of South American politics in Jacob's (Stone Cowboy) macho collection of 13 stories. In "Solidarity in Green," Mallory, a former Peace Corps volunteer, takes his new wife, Rebecca, to visit Honduras, where they find themselves negotiating with a radical revolutionary group who have kidnapped Rebecca's 15-year-old son. Among ample references to the big screen ("She kissed him like Hollywood" is the most embarrassing), Mallory secures the boy's safety and narrowly escapes forfeiting his own. The more delicate architecture of "How Birds Communicate" elevates it above cops-and-robbers ballyhoo. That story's narrator struggles to understand his sympathy for Pastor Coronel, the supporter of Paraguayan dictator General Stroessner who killed the narrator's father and caused his mother's mental breakdown. The title story details the saga of a woman consigned to prostitution and then barbarically disfigured by her keeper. Some of these tales are keepers, but too many take the easy way out, indulging in melodrama; moreover, Jacobs too often slips into self-conscious and unconvincing language. (Jan.) FYI: Jacobs, a career Foreign Service officer with experience in Turkey, Bolivia, Paraguay and Honduras, served as Cultural Attache at the U.S. Embassy in Madrid.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Imaginative, clever, and picturesque descriptions of people and places are abundant in this collection of stories. The settings are the countries of Honduras, Bolivia, and Paraguay; Jacobs (Stone Cowboy, LJ 9/1/97), who lived abroad as a foreign service officer, kept his eyes wide open. The relationships of the native people to each other and to foreigners are explored in well-written narratives with which the reader can easily sympathize. In one story, a young maid worries about how the German family she works for will react when they find out that she is pregnant. In another, residents of a small village react surprisingly to an unlikable neighbor when they find out he is really Joseph Mengele. In story after story, the whole range of human emotions is explored. Many times the plot directly parallels political situations. Recommended for public and academic libraries.?Lisa Rohrbaugh, East Palestine Memorial P.L., OH
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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6 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Imagination interprets his Foreign Service experience,
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This review is from: LIBERATION OF LITTLE HEAVEN-C (Hardcover)
The Foreign Service has many would-be-writers,who want to turn their exotic overseas adventures into novels and short stories. I know because I'm one of them. It is a rare one who can transform those experiences into stand-alone literary creations that do not center on the American diplomat protagonist. Mark Jacobs has succeeded. He is an inspiration. His foreign characters come alive. The interactions of cultures rings true. His sensitivity shines. I'm glad he's a writer. I'm also glad he represents his country abroad.
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