The year-long correspondence between two former college roommates -
one a smart, utterly self-absorbed young Manhattanite, the other a
droll yet stubbornly idealistic Peace Corps volunteer - becomes a
funny, harrowing, heartbreaking meditation on life, love,
suffering, and friendship. A few years after graduation, Hilary
finds herself summoned to the City Hall wedding of her friend Kate,
who embarks shortly thereafter for Kenya, where she and her husband
will work as English teachers. The two friends pledge to keep in
touch; the letters that comprise the book turn this promise into
print. In the beginning, Kate pens breezy missives out of Africa,
emphasizing the exotic and the comic, particularly the
gastrointestinal consequences of existing on a diet of rancid goat
meat and orange Fanta. But as the year goes on, Kate's letters turn
darker in tone as she battles malaria, is sickened by contaminated
water, and watches helplessly as her students, who are routinely
beaten by school authorities, erupt into violence. In counterpoint
to her friend's stories of real if temporary deprivation, Hilary's
urban tales of woe round up the usual suspects of middle-class
life: men she wants who don't want her, "brutal" commutes, endless
business meetings, and, for good manure, a possibly psychotic
downstairs neighbor. Though she sometimes becomes downright silly,
Hilary is not blind to the ironies of her privileged situation.
Instead, she champions the validity of everyday unhappiness. "I
realize how this may sound in context of the crisis in Kwale," she
writes after a painful breakup, "but love counts, even in warfare."
Elegantly written, this correspondence reads like miniature essays
on subjects as diverse as loneliness, clementines, the joy (and
pain) of cybersex, and how to behave while one's concrete hut is
being exorcised. Above all, this book affirms the power of
friendship as expressed in the nearly lost art of letter writing.
(Kirkus Reviews)
A funny and moving story told through the letters of two women
nurturing a friendship as they are separated by distance,
experience, and time.
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