Read REVOLUTION Deb Olin Unferth 9781250002686 Books
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Hailed as a "virtuosic one-woman show" (Time Out New York) this New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice pick tells the funny and poignant story of the year the author ran away from college with her idealistic boyfriend and followed him to Nicaragua to join the Sandinistas.
Despite their earnest commitment to a myriad of revolutionary causes and to each other, Deb and her boyfriend find themselves unwanted, unhelpful, and unprepared as they bop around Central America, looking for "revolution jobs." The year is 1987, a turning point in the Cold War, although the world doesn't know it yet, especially not Unferth and her fiancé (he proposes on a roadside in El Salvador). The months wear on and cracks begin to form in their relationship they get fired, they get sick, they run out of money, they grow disillusioned with the revolution and each other. But years later the trip remains fixed in her mind and she finally goes back to Nicaragua to try to make sense of it all. Unferth's heartbreaking and hilarious memoir perfectly captures the youthful search for meaning, and is an absorbing rumination on what happens to a country and its people after the revolution is over.
Read REVOLUTION Deb Olin Unferth 9781250002686 Books
"Is it easier to tell the truth in fiction or nonfiction? Deb Olin Unferth, author of the short-story collection Minor Robberies and the novel Vacation, has opted for nonfiction this time around. In her memoir Revolution: The Year I Fell in Love and Went to Join the War, a clueless girl and her Christian boyfriend want to go to Cuba but "don't know how to get there," so they head south instead, toward a Central America caught up in the Cold War.
It's 1987, two years before the fall of the Berlin Wall. In Nicaragua, the Sandinistas have deposed the Somoza family but struggle to feed their people and hold back the Contras. The bloody civil war in El Salvador is approaching its crisis. Honduran and Guatemalan death squads routinely gun down campesinos in the mountains, insisting they are insurgents. Manuel Noriega is el presidente of Panama--for a little while longer.
"Dear Mom and Dad," Debbie writes from Nogales, Texas. "I'm sorry to tell you in this way, but I've left school and am going to help foment the revolution. I am a Christian now and I have been called by God. Due to the layout of the land, we are taking the bus."
Please read the rest of this review at [...]"
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Tags : REVOLUTION [Deb Olin Unferth] on . Hailed as a virtuosic one-woman show ( Time Out New York</i>) this New York Times Book Review</i> Editor's Choice pick tells the funny and poignant story of the year the author ran away from college with her idealistic boyfriend and followed him to Nicaragua to join the Sandinistas. Despite their earnest commitment to a myriad of revolutionary causes and to each other,Deb Olin Unferth,REVOLUTION,Griffin,1250002680,Authors, American;21st century;Biography.,Central America;Description and travel.,139201 Holt Griffin PB-Holt Griffin PB,21st century,Authors, American,BIOGRAPHY AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Political,Biography,Biography Autobiography,Biography Autobiography / Personal Memoirs,Biography / Autobiography,Biography/Autobiography,Central America,DESCRIPTION AND TRAVEL,GENERAL,General Adult,Latin America / Central America,Memoirs,Nicaragua,Non-Fiction,Personal Memoirs,REBELLION AND INSURGENCY,Travel,Unferth, Deb Olin
REVOLUTION Deb Olin Unferth 9781250002686 Books Reviews :
REVOLUTION Deb Olin Unferth 9781250002686 Books Reviews
- Although I agree with the criticism some have given this book, I also think that's what makes this memoir so fascinating. Unferth and her boyfriend had no idea what they were getting themselves into!
I totally relate to this book and had similar ideas of my own to go join the Revolution. My boyfriend (who later became my husband, then my ex) was Salvadoran so he knew it was no joking matter to go join a guerrilla group or any other group during the civil wars in Central and South America.
We even had some friends who were in a punk rock band that went to Nicaragua after the Revolution. The more I heard, the more I wanted to go. I finally did go to El Salvador, but my boyfriend's family made sure I didn't get into any really bad situations.
It's interesting that of all the people I met who had been to Nicaragua, not one of them told me the raw truth that Unferth tells here. I had no idea that it would have been so difficult! Yes, I knew there were very young soldiers who were indoctrinated to believe anyone who cared about the people were Communists (this was how it was in El Salvador). I knew that the Sandinistas were mostly young idealists who knew what hunger and violence was like (El Salvador too, that's how both sides were able to recruit so many teens). But I never knew about the day to day difficulties of lack of food, money and jobs, and the abundance of diseases that could KILL you!
Unferth bares her soul like few have done, especially as it relates to Central America, idealists and trying to understand another culture.
One of my favorite facts that Unferth brings up is that the locals didn't call us American and European idealists "Internationalistas," but instead referred to us (or them, since I didn't go) as "Sandalistas" because of the fact that almost all of them wore some kind of sandals! They may have arrived in Birkenstocks, but eventually had to wear whatever some local shoemaker with no resources could make for them.
I must admit that the novel made me very glad that my headstrong Salvadoran boyfriend never gave in to the silly whims of an American girl who, at that time, romanticized the entire idea of helping poor people make a better life for themselves. It truly was NO JOKE. Knowing me, I might not have made it back alive!
Sherrie Miranda is the author of "Secrets & Lies in El Salvador Shelly's Journey"
P.S. I should note that the book I read had a different (more appropriate) cover. I don't know if there were many changes made to this edition. - Deb' writing style created in my mind images of the characters and the surroundings. Even imagined smells. Loved the story.
- Is it easier to tell the truth in fiction or nonfiction? Deb Olin Unferth, author of the short-story collection Minor Robberies and the novel Vacation, has opted for nonfiction this time around. In her memoir Revolution The Year I Fell in Love and Went to Join the War, a clueless girl and her Christian boyfriend want to go to Cuba but "don't know how to get there," so they head south instead, toward a Central America caught up in the Cold War.
It's 1987, two years before the fall of the Berlin Wall. In Nicaragua, the Sandinistas have deposed the Somoza family but struggle to feed their people and hold back the Contras. The bloody civil war in El Salvador is approaching its crisis. Honduran and Guatemalan death squads routinely gun down campesinos in the mountains, insisting they are insurgents. Manuel Noriega is el presidente of Panama--for a little while longer.
"Dear Mom and Dad," Debbie writes from Nogales, Texas. "I'm sorry to tell you in this way, but I've left school and am going to help foment the revolution. I am a Christian now and I have been called by God. Due to the layout of the land, we are taking the bus."
Please read the rest of this review at [...] - I read this memoir in one day. I remember the Sandinistas and Father Romero and and all the South American Turmoil in the 80s. Deb has artfully woven the political and social upheaval in South America and tells her own personal tale of love, youthful ideals and rebellion. This memoir makes a statement about revolution on the political and personal level and Deb spins a thoughtful, literary testament to a time and place in her life painted against a modern revolution. I highly recommend this memoir. I saw Deb discuss her book and read. She is a diminutive woman in stature but not in talent. Good Writing!
- Two things stand out for me about this book 1) The author was so clueless at a young age and later that it was frightening, and 2) The reader gets no real feeling for what it was like to be in the countries visited during this time period.
I found the cluelessness to be ultimately boring and bewildering, and since I didn't learn anything about Nicaragua or anywhere else she went in this slim and frivolous book, I can't recommend it.
When I noticed that the author is now teaching at Wesleyan, my first thought was, "My God, this person is now teaching our children?" Hopefully she has learned a lot in the intervening years. - Picture yourself 18 years old, a freshman in college and on your own for the first time in your life. With your first taste of freedom, you fall for the wrong boy and run off to South America because he thinks it is a good idea. Deb Olin Unferth does exactly this. I kept asking myself, why would anyone do this? Well, Deb answers like a typical unsure 18 year old with this memoir. There are some seriously funny moments in this book, but I was a bit frustrates in a couple of stories where they just kind of ending with "I forget" or "can't remember", but then I realized I couldn't remember anything from my time as an 18 year old except that I thought I knew everything.
Her revolutionary period didn't involve fighting but lots of short stints of being domestic help since some one needs to help the kids displaced by war. Her recounting of helping in an orphanage is truly inspired. She decides that she will help the kids learn to speak English and farm. All noble ideals except the she doesn't know enough Spanish to teach them English and the kids know more than her about gardening. She buys flower seeds instead of vegetables. This is a very wonderful read for anyone who wished they ran away to rebel, but didn't have the guts. I received this book from the publisher at no expense in exchange for my honest review.
