Author: Mary Jo McConahay
Publisher: Shebooks
Rating: WORTHY!
DISCLOSURE: Unlike the majority of reviews in this blog, I've neither bought this book nor borrowed it from the library. This is a "galley" copy ebook, supplied by Net Galley. I'm not receiving (nor will I expect to receive or accept) remuneration for this review.
This is a very short memoir (only 46 pages) but is packed with feeling and intensity. It's related by a print journalist who is resident in Guatemala. She covers wars and insurgencies throughout the area, but this story focuses on the El Salvador civil war, and the fighting going on during an election which the right-wing won and which then went on to rule the nation despite its association with callous death squads.
The narrator is friends with another journalist by the name of Nancy, whom she's known for years and with whom she's very close. The two take up residence in a nice, comfortable hotel along with a gaggle of other journalists from all over the world. In the past this pair has covered stories together, but here, though they share a room, they venture out individually and at risk of their life to cover potential stories for their US newspapers.
There is a stark contrast between their air-conditioned hotel life and real life (and death) out on the dusty, blood-stained streets. They're surrounded by shooting, bombs, and suffering, which hits hardest at the non-combatants - the families, the young children, the moms and dads, the siblings. The narrator seems able to compartmentalize this horror to an extent, but Nancy reaches a point, after a journalist friend is killed in a border crossing misunderstanding, where she cannot stand the idea of seeing another dead body, yet she remains in El Salvador to teach children how to be photographers (in between the times they must spend scavenging at the city dump).
The narrator doesn't believe Nancy will give up her reporting life, but she's wrong, and despite set-backs and a horror story, her friend makes a success of her newly-chosen avocation.
This kind of story is not normally my cup of tea (tequila?) but in this case, I have to say that I am so glad I read it. It's gritty and immediate, and regardless of the details: of how much is related exactly as it happened and how much is a filtered recollection, it's nonetheless as real as it's disturbing, and as depressing as it is heartening. I recommend this memoir.
