Customer Reviews

A Wilderness Called Peace

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One of the only novels ever written in which characters from several different cultures speak in letters written in their own authentic voices: An educated Cambodian woman caught in the war and the Khmer Rouge terror, the Cambodian man and the American diplomat concerned with her whereabouts, and the diplomat's rebellious son who undertakes the ill-advised adventure of seeking her out. An unknown masterpiece of American literature.

This novel by poet and translator Edmund Keeley was inspired by his own father's experience as a senior staffer at the US Embassy in Phnom Penh in 1975, and in Thailand during later years. It begins well, with the journal of a Eurasian woman who has decided to stay in the city and take her chances with the Khmer Rouge. She writes to her American lover who has been forced to flee. The story jumps back and forth and all around, adopting the points of view of a variety of characters, and very quickly the prose deteriorates to a plodding, monotonous academic mumble, which combines with a lifeless story line to create one of the most boring books I have ever read. All of the characters have essentially the same professorial tone, and the use of journal entries as a means of describing events soon becomes maddeningly implausible. Even the author seems to be struggling to get through it, and ties up loose plot ends hastily in the final pages so that we can all get on with our lives. Not recommended to anyone.

One of the only novels ever written in which characters from several different cultures speak in letters written in their own authentic voices: An educated Cambodian woman caught in the war and the Khmer Rouge terror, the Cambodian man and the American diplomat concerned with her whereabouts, and the diplomat's rebellious son who undertakes the ill-advised adventure of seeking her out. An unknown masterpiece of American literature.