The White Mary
Kira Salak
Henry Holt and Company, LLC, 2008
ISBN: 9780805088472
Reviewed by Dawn Janine Mitchell for ReviewYourBook.com, 12/2008
3stars
“A journey of healing to personal salvation?”
Marika Vecera is a war correspondent who is in search of her childhood hero, Robert Lewis, who was pronounced dead after an apparent suicide. However, Marika receives a letter from a missionary who claims to have seen Lewis alive in the jungle. Throughout the story, it seems as if Marika looks to him as a father figure, but later the reader sees a sudden change in the relationship, which is quite unbelievable.
Only one character seems true in this story: Tobo, Marika‘s guide through the jungle. Tobo’s character was full of old-world wisdom, and it was easy to believe in his authenticity. The descriptions of Papua were phenomenal.
I could almost feel myself present in the various places described. I was compelled to finish the book just to learn more about the culture, the different attitudes and beliefs of the tribes of New Guinea. However, the graphic depictions of torture and rape were quite unnecessary. It’s best to sometimes leave descriptions up to the reader’s imagination.
I have to admit that the description of the story was more appealing than the story itself. I didn’t see much about the personal journey that rang true. In real life, such a journey takes time and more effort. The healing aspect of the book was just too far-fetched. Some parts of The White Mary were rather dull reading and others were just too graphic. ( )

The characters, scenes, events and descriptions of this book are so real that I found myself almost living Marika's life and experiencing her trials, tribulations, and successes in her amazing journey from traumatic events to a spiritual awakening. Never once was my reading suddenly interrupted by any event that seemed unreal and made me aware that I was reading a work of fiction. The characters are interesting, all people who we come to care about and understand at a very a deep level. The book brought me to places I have never seen, never imagined, and made them as real to me as my own living room. The book's pages flow easily and you are constantly being pulled forward, wanting to know what will happen next. Once I started reading the book I ignored other plans and just had to keep reading until the end. Tobo, though a secondary character, I think is one of my favorites, his insights into life are really amazing. The physical and spiritual journeys in this book are wonderful, sometimes extremely powerful, and I am so glad that I was able to join Marika on her journeys.

I loved that Marika was so realistic. She has all of the strengths and weaknesses that we find in all humanity. Marika represents us at the point in our life where we struggle out of darkness and into the light. The character Seb represents what we can become after reaching the lowest point and struggling through years of work to reach the highest point.

Salak is a true master at the craft of novel writing and this is a powerful novel written on many levels.

A book that should definitely be read. ( )

Kira Salak's "The White Mary" is a gripping first novel about one woman's journey to the end of the earth--otherwise known as Paupa New Guinea--and back. Salak's heroine, Marika, goes to PNG looking for the famous war reporter Robert Lewis. A war reporter herself, Marika goes into the jungle expecting an adventure, but instead undergoes a near death experience that changes her life. The novel flashes back and forth between Marika's time in PNG and her life in Boston before her trip, slowly exposing the heroine's demons to the reader. When Marika is forced to face who she really is in the depths of the jungle, the reader is pulled along through her emotional journey.

I think Salak's novel is so gripping because the author herself is a war reporter, and many of Marika and Lewis' experiences are based on things the author experienced. When she describes the jungles of PNG or the African plains, you feel like you are really there. This realism does warrant a warning though--some passages of Salak's novel are graphically violent, so sensitive readers should beware.

I would recommend this novel to anyone who enjoys a story about a strong woman, or a story of a woman finding herself. This is very much a modern "Heart of Darkness" so be ready! ( )

Kira Salak is an award-winning journalist and travel writer, who was the first woman to traverse Papua New Guinea, so it comes as no surprise that her debut novel features a female journalist, Marika, trekking through remotest Papua New Guinea. The book tries to combine the arduous, almost impossible trek which is motivated by Marika’s compulsion to find a missing journalist, with her doubts and insecurities about her deepening relationship with Seb, a psychologist who has a decidedly more compassionate view of the world than Marika, who in her journalistic pursuits has seen the worst mankind can dole out to one another (some of which is described in horrowing detail). The target of her search is Robert Lewis, a world-famous reporter whose suicide by self-drowning is left open for questioning since his body was never found. Marika is drawn into the hero-worshiping circle that surrounds Lewis, but she takes it one step further when she gets wind that he may still be alive and living in the jungle. There’s supposed to be a message here, possibly about not letting man’s inhumanity toward each other rob one of the ability to trust and love, but it all gets bogged down in poorly rendered, heavy-handed Conradian darkness, stereotypical unsavory missionaries, and poorly written love-is-real revelations. For more entertaining novels I’d suggest both At Play In The Fields of the Lord, or Poisionwood Bible. Or stick with Heart Of Darkness for the real thing. ( )

The White Mary ranks in my top 5 books of the year. Provided I got past some obvious but indirect disdain for Christianity at times, the story itself was and adventure worth taking.

The novel is about Marika Vecera, a foreign journalist, who ventures into the most remote, most dangerous places she can find. In doing so, she seems to toss her soul from place to place hoping something, or someone that can awaken its true purpose and she can ultimately find joy and love.

Marika is a strong female character, who loses her Mom not physically, but in mind, when her Mother loses her mind. She has already lost her father, so Marika goes to live with relatives, and by thirteen, wins a scholarship to boarding school, where she finds herself on her own from that point on. Her hero through her school years is foreign journalist Robert Lewis. Robert Lewis is assumed dead due to a suicide note, and in researching a biography she is penning about him, she uncovers clues that he may still be alive.

Marika sets out on a treacherous journey through the forests of Papua New Guinea, where amazing events, scenes, people, and places play out in a story that dwarfs the likes of Indiana Jones and other adventure tales. With Marika’s guide Tobo beside her most of the way, Kira Salak provides two voices for this captivating journey of the body and the spirit.

If you love adventure and the exploration of other cultures and places, you’ll love this book. ( )