Foreign Correspondence: A Pen Pal's Journey from Down Under to All Over - Softcover

Brooks, Geraldine

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0385483732 ISBN 13: 9780385483735

Publisher: Anchor, 1999

Synopsis

As a young girl in a working-class neighborhood of Sydney, Australia, Geraldine Brooks longed to discover the places where history happens and culture comes from, so she enlisted pen pals who offered her a window on adolescence in the Middle East, Europe, and America. Twenty years later Brooks, an award-winning foreign correspondent, embarked on a human treasure hunt to find her pen friends. She found men and women whose lives had been shaped by war and hatred, by fame and notoriety, and by the ravages of mental illness. Intimate, moving, and often humorous, Foreign Correspondence speaks to the unquiet heart of every girl who has ever yearned to become a woman of the world.

About this title

Review:

The leap between dreamy child living in a provincial Australian neighborhood and journalist hopscotching through war zones is massive. In Foreign Correspondence, Geraldine Brooks (Nine Parts of Desire) unravels the rope that pulled and tugged her toward adventure and away from "a very small world" where her family had no car and had never boarded a plane or placed an international phone call. "I'd never imagined myself as someone whose packing list would include a chador, much less a bulletproof vest," she says. Preserved in the cellar of her parents' home in Sydney were letters Brooks had received as a teenager from several international pen pals, around whom she spun a romantic view of the world. Wondering about the reality of their lives and the progression of her own, she tracks them down in France, Japan, the Middle East, and New York. En route, Brooks delivers a wonderful meditation on childhood and adolescence lashed with rich details and quirky humor. Speaking of a current pen pal, she notes: "Raed, from the West Bank, stoned my car in 1987; now he writes to tell me how he's faring in college."

From the Publisher:

"There is real magic here. Foreign Correspondence is one of those books destined to be described as a gem. But gems are cold and inert and this book is alive and kicking with truth and wisdom about childhood, memory, and growing up. I still can't quite believe how good it is."--Michael Lewis, author of Liar's Poker

About this edition

• Publisher: Anchor
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0385483732
• ISBN 13: 9780385483735
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 217