Customer Reviews

My Faraway Home: An American Family's WWII Tale of Adventure and Survival in the Jungles of the Philippines

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An enlightening story about Americans caught up and stranded in the jungle on Mindanao, the southernmost, large island of the Philippines at the start of WWII, My Faraway Home is told through the eyes of a young girl from the intellect of an adult woman. Touching excerpts from Mary McKay Maynard's mother's diary weave in and out of this tale of a group of Americans in a jungle hideaway using every survival skill they have to live their lives with some sort of order. Descriptions of the way life was back then and the beauty of the country are a special visit to a time that is no more. The slowness of day to day living eventually leads to as fine an adventure as any escape story provides. Off to a slow start with one day rather like the next, I became enchanted and pulled into the story so that I could not put it down and stayed up until 3 am reading it until it was done. Yes, I liked it.

Ms Maynard reaches a long way back into her memory to bring us this absorbing tale of a family forced to hide in the jungle on Mindanao when World War II broke out. The Japanese took over the Philippines, leaving nine-year old Mary McKay, her parents and a brother away at boarding school, stranded. With the American Pacific fleet sunk at Pearl Harbor, General McArthurs advice that Americans were in no danger turned out to be very wrong. McArthur was a stockholder in Mindanao Mother Lode, a mining operation where the authors father worked. From a comfortable existence with servants to cook their meals and wash their clothes, this family had to flee to another inactive mining camp well into the interior of the island, where they were further from the Japanese soldiers now swarming over the coastal areas.

Other families in the same situation lived with them at Gomoco, a gold mining camp that consisted of a few rickety buildings with a little stream flowing by. That stream became a river as it flowed to the coast, but boats could not navigate through the shallow water near the camp. Marys father was in charge of the collection of people who came and went over a two year period, and he presided over numerous arguments, often over whether to use more of the canned food or (as Mr. McKay thought) to preserve it for the even tougher times that might come.

In the end, the family is rescued by an American submarine that took them aboard to share the tight quarters with sailors, dodging Japanese ships as they made their way to Darwin, Australia. Marys brother Bob spent the years in internment camps and was rescued from a prison in Manila when the Americans finally came and took back the Philippines. General McArthur kept his promise to come back.

The book includes snatches of Marys mothers diary which she kept during the years of hiding. I suspect this was the main source of information from so long ago, although surely a girl who lived through so much peril and fear would not forget these events. But research and that diary must have supplied many of the details. Mary gives us interesting glimpses into the complicated relationship of her parents -- a father who could not understand his wifes need for comfort and reassurance, and a mother who begged her Filipino suppliers to find lipstick, believing that putting on a good face could hide her fears. The author also is willing to deal with the lopsided relationship between the Americans and the hard-working and loyal Filipinos, who did most of the work of keeping the foreigners fed and safe. That did not keep the Americans from feeling superior or making fun of the pigeon English spoken by the natives. It took many more years of living for the author to see how insensitive and ungrateful were these actions.

I found the story pulled me in as I read, and I wanted to find out what new problems would appear and to learn how this family would finally found their way back home, whatever home had come to mean to them. Once Mindanao fell they had to decide whether to give themselves up (as the Japanese demanded of all Americans) or to continue to try to evade notice. Eventually enough servicemen and civilians who did not surrender themselves were able to put together an organized guerilla action to provide mutual support, harass the Japanese and keep in contact with American military forces fighting the war. That led to the submarine rescue and the end of the book, an interesting story from a time soon to be relegated to history books as memories fade completely and the story tellers are with us no more. This book is a rare opportunity to see the war from a new perspective, through the eyes of a child who experienced the disruption and terror of war up close and personal.

I learned about this book from my high school alumni web page and read it mostly out of curiousity. A fascinating book, a coming-of-age tale of a young girl in wartime. I so appreciated the author's skillful melding of her childish observations and her retrospective adult understanding of this difficult period of her life. She unflinchingly, and often humorously, describes the colonial prejudices of her parents and other Americans in their small community, their condescension toward Filipinos and Filipino-American mestizos, the tensions arising from a basic incompatibility between her parents, their strained relations with other fugitives from the war, and even a sexual assault. What makes the book so special, beyond its extraordinary tale, is the author's mature and sensitive handling of the subject matter. She owns up to her own failings and seeks to understand and forgive those of others, without condoning bad behavior. As an expatriate child in the Philippines (more than 20 years ago), I too felt superior to and made fun of the locals and am now heartily ashamed of it. Just as it took age and distance to fully appreciate my family, I can now admit to my love for the Philippines and her peoples. Our situations were so different, nevertheless McKay's words resonated strongly for me and inspire me to seek to develop even a fraction of her graciousness.

I highly recommend this book.

I enjoyed this book. It was interesting to read about this experience through the eyes of a child and then have a her mother's jounal quoted, so that you also had the mother's view. My heart went out to the whole family, because they didn't know where thier oldest child was, or if he was even alive and they still had to fight to keep themselves together in order to survive this ordeal. The father at first I thought of as very hard and uncaring person, but after reading the book I realized that he really had the best interest of all in mind. The experience from living in a nice home to living in the jungle with almost none of what we call bare essentials is amazing. How they learn to survive just made me respect them so much. I couldn't put the book down it was such an exciting read. The only thing better would be is to have it made into a movie.

Mary Maynard moves back in time to her childhood in the Philippine Islands and writes in her own words. She vividly portrays her emotions as an American child, alone amid expatriate adults, as she is taken from the security of a comfortable home to a native life in the style of her family's servants. Skillfully written, the book portrays the rapid changes in her maturity as she observes how adults react to the fears and frustrations of living in hiding in the confines of a jungle, where food, medicine, and clothing are in critically short supply, and creature comforts are nonexistent. Her rapid maturing becomes apparent as her observations grow to match those of an adult which are woven into the fabric of the story by excerpts from her mother's diary.
This riveting story of life behind enemy lines, as seen through a child's eyes, is a winner.

Mary McKay Maynard's "My Faraway Home" is an adventure tale written in clear, elegant prose. I read this book three weeks into the current military action in Central Asia; it served as a tonic from an earlier time when issues, and enemies, were much more clearly defined.

McKay writes with an artist's eye, providing many visual details of her family's months in the jungles of the Phillippines, hiding out from Japanese invaders. Her depiction of her parents, two mismatched people who grew closer in their struggles to survive and to nurture their daughter, is both clear-eyed and loving. She also brings to life the other people in her young life, fellow Americans and the native Filipinos who were generous to them. She writes of the tropic foods they ate in order to save her father's "iron rations"---canned goods.

She takes us through a child's growing awareness of social and political realities, of the danger and austerities faced by Americans who were trying to "wait out" the war in Far East. McKay writes without a trace of self-pity, and invokes in us an admiration for the grit of her family and their friends.

The author's picture shows us an attractive woman who still looks remarkably young, with that wonderful Scottish skin that wears so well.

Mary McKay Maynard has written a delightful chronicle, though it might seems strange to use the word "delightful" to describe a story about survival in the jungles of the Philippines. From the very beginning, the creative imagery invited me to feel the time, the place and the experience of her journey. It reminded me of the importance of seeing life through the eyes of a child who sees truth and beauty in any situation.
"It hadn't taken long for a seven-year-old to figure out that evacuation meant leaving a familiar life at a jungle goldmine where the days followed one after another in calm procession, where cicadas sang all day long in the heat and where the wak-wak cried out in the jungle night."
I am a psychotherapist, and was taken by many philosphical and psychological messages -- they made me stop to ponder. Here are two among many: "I was having fun and was learning what the Filipinos were learning in the lowlands. You can win against stronger forces by pretending to be stupid." And, "I looked then to my mother, but she couldn't see me. It was the worst of news for me. I learned then that there are situations that no one has the power to change. My parents could not change their fate, nor could they change mine. Even though they loved me and would take care of me, there could be things beyond their control. I was alone with my life and could not alwyas be safe."
My Faraway Home is a fascinating adventure and adds to my admittedly weak knowledge of history.

This involving book has a wonderful story line told compellingly through a young girls eyes, of World War II and how innocent people get caught in a war and had their lives changed forever.

The author, I think, tells a deeper story, counter-pointing ego versus humility. American ego - represented by McArthur and her father lulled America into a false belief that Japan, as a small island nation was not a serious threat. This misguided ego sends the girl and her family off on a two-year jungle odyssey. The story is both idyllic, for a young girl but suspenseful as they live and struggle on the brink of capture and death.

The counterpoint to ego is the relationship of her family with the Filipinos who are humble, resourceful and help them survive and avoid capture. The escape march and the courage of the sailors who come to rescue them are not only suspenseful but for me defines the true heroes of war. These heroes are not the Generals but small, real people like the Filipinos, sailors and the family who do what ever it takes to survive while doing their duty.

Its great book and I expect, will be an exciting movie some day.

Mary McKay Maynard is no stranger to violence. As a nine year-old girl aboard an American submarine taking her to Australia from the Philippines she was depth bombed by a Japanese destroyer.

She is a skillful observer. Not only does Mary convey the terror and excitement of direct contact with an enemy, plus earthquakes, typhoons, and brush fires but she holds the reader's interest through weeks and months of doing nothing but hide in the jungles of Mindanao Island except to observe the animal and plant life around her.

As a historian of the American era in the Philippines I am impressed by Mary's ability to blend her memories with her mother's diaries and extensive research to produce what is unquestionably the best account of Americans evading imprisonment and sometimes death at the hands of the invaders.

Mary also tells the story of her brother Bob, captured at a boarding school on Luzon island and their unsuccessful efforts to communicate until he was liberated in Manila in February 1945 only to witness the great battle less than a mile away in which up to 100,000 civilians, almost all the 16,665 Japanese defenders and 1,070 American soldiers and internees were killed. The toll surpassed those in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It is a story thaT provides perspective for today.

This is an endearingly personal account of a terrifying time through a childs eyes... It brought to mind a feeling I get about The Diary of Anne Frank in that it three dimensionalized WWII. I'm grateful I could read the authors account written as an adult [but obviously the memory of living through it is as vivid now as then]. Made me wonder [which I often have]what Anne would have written if she wrote about that today...and wonder how many other stories haven't been written. It made me feel and it made me think.