Foreign Correspondence: A Pen Pal's Journey from Down Under to All Over
The leap between dreamy child living in a provincial Australian neighborhood and journalist  hopscotching through war zones is massive. InForeign 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 achador, 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."--This text refers to theHardcoveredition.