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The White Mary by Kira Salak

Although I cannot write a good novel nor could I teach how to accomplish that feat, I know when I am reading one; this is not a terrible book but it is not a good one either. Too much of the book’s plot simply lacks credibility. Characters do not seem authentic because their actions seem impossible or inexplicable. Marika Vecera is a successful journalist but how does she manage to penetrate the New Guinea jungles where few white men and no white women have ever gone? Salak’s plot hinges on the reader believing that Marika would choose six months of trying to survive in an extremely inhospitable jungle to discover whether Robert Lewis, a man she has never met, is alive or dead. After miraculously finding Lewis, she then engages in an improbable love affair with him and he, who seems barely sane, tells her what he has told no one else. Why would Marika risk everything, including her life, to investigate a rumor about a fake suicide? Why would she have indiscriminate sex with men she barely likes when she supposedly loves and lives with a man she genuinely admires? How does she manage to survive mountain climbing, swamp forging, malaria, disease, ringworm, lack of food and water while simultaneously becoming an expert in forest survival strategies? Salak asks the reader to suspend all disbelief and just trek along with her through the plot’s jungle as well as through the New Guinea jungle.

Salak is no genius at writing stimulating dialogue either. Far too many Marika responses consist of “Yeah.” Why bother with such a lusterless response and why so frequently? Dialogue is not the only repetitious element. Marika’s eyes fill too often with tears though she can endure amazing hardships and face death with barely a shudder. I also became quite irritated with the continual mosquito onslaught.

As a former English teacher, I also dislike authors who write in fragments when a sentence would work better. For instance on p. 347 as Salak summarizes the lesson the reader is to learn about choosing life over death: “For all the ugliness in it. And for all the grace.” Clichés plague this book’s themes as well as its characters, plot, and dialogue. Marika learns after several near-death adventures that no matter what tragedies occur, no matter what horrors exist in the world, she must choose happiness for herself. She must choose to save herself. Real courage isn’t about visiting dangerous places or risking her own life. Real courage, she has learned, is choosing to live. Better yet, she will not choose to live just for herself but for the world. These ideas are neither profound nor original.

I think that Salak toyed with the idea of a cruel, powerless, or nonexistent god but then decided to end on an optimistic note. After just touching on that idea, Salak leaves Lewis alone in the jungle to struggle with his atheism and sends Marika back to her ever forgiving, overly sensitive, wealthy, handsome, brilliant boyfriend. The reader wonders why she ever left him.

Better editing might have eliminated at least some of the many episodes of mosquito attacks, endless descriptions of wounds, scrapes, bites, etc. After 351 pages I hoped for a more profound ending than a conversation with Tobo, Marika’s guide and rescuer, and Marika concerning his dead sister’s necklace:

“She starts to take it off, but he shakes his head. ‘You must wear the necklace until it falls off. Then my sister’s soul will go on.’

‘But I’ll be flying back to the U.S. with it.’

‘Yes,’ he says. ‘She will know where to go.’”

That is what I call ending a novel with a whimper rather than with any sort of a bang. ( )

Could not put this down! (Although I liked the beginning better than the ending for some reason.) As a tough war journalist, Marika travels the world over covering atrocities that 95% of the population in the US could not fathom existed, or when confronted with them, put their heads back into the sand to ignore. When she hears that her idol has not committed suicide as widely believed and reported, Marika goes to remote Papua New Guinea in search of him. Her most dangerous journey yet, she spends months in the jungle, surviving one near death experience after another, in order to find him. (Side note: Salak was the first woman to travel extensively in PNG, and I can't WAIT to read her account of that, although I don't generally read memoirs.)

Some things that kept this from getting five stars: I found it a bit unbelievable that she would go out on a wild whim in order to find someone. Sure, it was representative of a soul search (and was) but.... I still thought it a bit of a stretch. Also, almost all of the characters has supporting roles to Marika, they did not really seem to exist without her. Still, a great read. ( )

This was easily my favourite read of this year, and will probably place in my top ten reads ever.

I found this to be a powerful read. Nothing was superficial and that was a welcome change. It was so powerful and raw, and very though provoking.

I would highly recommend this book.

This book is a tale of darkness and light with the main character, a reporter of Third World conflicts, finding herself through a search for another person.

Descriptions of atrocities, while graphic, are key to the reader understanding the horror of "man's inhumanity to man" and the effect on those who live through those atrocities.

Marika Vecera, the main character journeys through awakening experiences in Africa, Boston, and finally Papua New Guinea. The experiences ring true and are enhanced by the author's intimate knowledge of the places she writes about. To quote the author, this story "guides us from illusion to truth, from darkness to light." ( )