| Title | : | Foreign Correspondence: A Pen Pals Journey from Down Under to All Over |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0385483732 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780385483735 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 217 |
| Publication | : | First published December 29, 1997 |
| Awards | : | Nita B. Kibble Literary Award (1999) |
Foreign Correspondence: A Pen Pals Journey from Down Under to All Over Reviews
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Foreign Correspondence was my first Geraldine Brooks book, and I immediately fell in love with the writing style that earned her a Pulitzer Prize for March and People of the Book.
In this 200 page packed memoir, Brooks writes about growing up in Sydney, Australia and how having pen pals both local and international shaped her view of the world. She writes that hers was the last generation to live in an isolated Australia. Everyone finished university and for the most part left. Brooks' pen pals became her window to the world and she also longed to leave after she completed her schooling.
Fast forward 20 years later. Brooks is a foreign correspondent for the a Wall Street Journal living back in Sydney. She finds all of her correspondence in her parents home and is determined to find her pen pals, which she does. Her travels take her to suburban New Jersey, Israel, and France as she observes where her pen pals are in life. Through her meetings with them, she realizes that the stable life she grew up with in Sydney was much more wholesome than that of some of her pen pals, and she wistfully longs for a life like that presently.
Having had pen pals as a kid and pseudo pen pals on social media now, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. At a time when your whole life is the town you grow up in, having pen pals in another country broadens your view of the world and expands your horizons and hopes for the future. I actually had an Australian pen pal and longed for her letters that would come once a month. Then I fantasized about traveling to Australia one day as a way out of the monotony of day to day living. The pen pals Brooks had had a profound effect on her and she has either visited, worked, or lived in all of the countries where her friends lived.
The best part of this for me was to see how a child's mind viewed the world. I could practically see her eyes light up as she ran to her yellow mailbox and open her letters. Now she is an award winning journalist and writer shaped by these childhood correspondences. I am giddy to read her other award winning books in the near future. -
I am gradually coming round to accepting the fact that memoirs are not my thing. Even when written by
Geraldine Brookswho is one of my favourite authors - of fiction! Sadly I found this book to be quite uninteresting. I would have liked more of the authors experiences as a foreign correspondent and less about her pen pals who were not a very exciting bunch really. My fault for reading a memoir when I know I don't like them. I'll go back to sticking to just fiction and reminding myself that this is the same author who wrote the fantastic
Caleb's Crossing -
Foreign Correspondence by foreign correspondent Geraldine Brooks was a delightful memoir about her childhood in Sydney, Australia and dreaming of the world beyond her existence in the working class neighborhood on the west side. On one of her trips home to see her ailing father, while in the basement of her parent's home going through her father's correspondence, Brooks came across a packet of her childhood letters with her pen pal friends throughout the world during the 1960's and 1970's that her father had kept for her. Her father had been a big-band singer in Hollywood and Hawaii during the 1930's before settling in Sydney to raise a family. It is from here that he corresponded with people throughout the world. Brooks notes that her father's escape was the yellow-painted metal mailbox containing flimsy aerograms or heavy bond paper with official-looking seals. She realized at the age of ten, that she too could write to strangers in far-away places where she imagined that history and culture were occurring in ways that she couldn't know in her small backyard two thousand miles below the equator. The book is divided into two parts; the first part her childhood in Sydney, Australia including the writings with her pen pals throughout the world, reaching from downtown Sydney to two boys from the Middle East, one Arab and one Jewish, to girls in New Jersey and Provence, France. The second part of the book focuses on Brooks attempting to track down all of her pen pals from childhood as she travels to the eastern part of the United States, the Middle East, and Europe. It was a beautiful book with many life lessons.
"Journalists usually get their experience at a discount. When we go to war we rarely die, we don't have to kill, our homes aren't pounded to rubble, we aren't cast adrift as exiles. If we are bruised at all, it is by the images we carry, the memories we wish we didn't have. I would always have them, dark pictures in a mental album that I could never throw away."
"For the first time, it occurred to me that my childhood had offered the best of both alternatives: the stability of a secure and reliable real world, and the infinite adventure of the invented one inhabited by my pen pals--those helpless ciphers on whom I had projected the fantasies of my imaginary life." -
What to expect? Author's family background, pen-pal'ing as a youth, a bit of her later life followed by tracking down some penpals after decades, rounding out with her recent (as book went to press) family update.
In a nutshell, it's well-written, but I never felt fully engaged, but picked it up each time to get through it; wasn't ever tempted to DNF though. Mileage may vary here, but I didn't particularly like her or her father. The whole thing was, overall, just... there. Strongest feature was the unique Australian youth experience - the attitude of "anything Australian isn't worth much, all eyes on Britain!" in the 50s/60s especially dismal. But, that's how it was. Her political slant, and that of her father, weren't my thing either.
Bottom line: I'm not going to dissuade anyone who feels they might like it, except to say that being a female "of a certain age" might help in being target audience. -
In Foreign Correspondence Geraldine Brooks reflects on her seemingly bland Sydney childhood enlivened by correspondence with her exotic pen pals - in a more exciting part of Sydney and in the USA, Israel and France. Years later, she catches up with her former pen pals and their families, after her own exciting career as a foreign correspondent, marriage and motherhood, and her move to the States. Brooks uses her past childhood correspondence and the dissonance between her imagination and the reality she discovers to reflect on her parents' lives, her safe and not so insular childhood and her changing reflections on Australia and the world.
While I found the often evocative descriptions of a sheltered Sydney childhood a little slow at first, the harrowing story of her USA pen pal's struggle with anorexia and depression, the realities of the lives of her two pen pals from Israel (one Jewish, the other a Christian Arab from Nazareth) and the insularity of French village life caught my interest while giving me a deeper understanding of the author of Year of Wonders , March, People of the Book and Caleb's Crossing . -
When you read a book by Geraldine Brooks, you know you are in the hands of a master. In Foreign Correspondence, she not only gives a typical memoir, but she adds the twist of looking up her childhood penpals. Most memoirs with a twist or angle, really feel forced, but Ms. Brooks's does not. Largely because of how important her pen pals were in her childhood.
While growing up in staid suburban Sydney, Geraldine felt closed-in, restricted, and boring. Despite being surrounded by immigrants and refugees - something she only realized as an adult in retrospect - she felt her upbringing was conservative, closed-off, and uninteresting. But also, leaving the country is something that was simply expected in that era. Australia is so far away from everything else, which leads to it being so behind, that all the young people leave, at least for a little while, usually after college. Geraldine was particularly chomping at the bit for her walkabout. When she was still too young to travel, she looked for foreign penpals to introduce her tot he world abroad. She started with a girl on the other side of Sydney (which was actually quite foreign to Geraldine), expanded to an American, a French girl, and two boys in Palestine and Israel, a Christan Arab, and a Jew.
As she grew up, she did travel herself, extensively, as a foreign correspondent. She married an American Jew, settled eventually in Virginia, and spent time all over the world in war-torn places, bringing news stories to the public. And as she travelled, she had opportunities to find her old penpals. She was mostly inspired by her relationship with Joannie, the American, who had a rough life but was always optimistic. Geraldine felt guilty when her own life went well as Joannie struggled so much with mental issues and yet really worked hard to overcome them. Joannie was really Geraldine's best friend for ten years, and when Geraldine got in Columbia University's journalism school in New York, she was so looking forward to finally meeting Joannie in person!
I had worried that this book would be entirely about the penpals, but it was largely about growing up Australian. And not the Australia of kangaroos and koalas that the rest of us usually think of - the Australia that was a little behind the times, a little innocent, and yet going through changes as it pulled away from England's grasp and tried to forge its own path more. It's interesting to see another country taking such interest in America's presidential elections, and Geraldine's father influenced her international flair with his Zionism and his own travels (an American, he had been a big-band singer in the 1930s).
Her writing is so excellent that you don't notice it at all. It's smooth, precise, and eloquent. I admire her way with words and how she's happy for her writing to be in the background, and isn't showy or flashy. I enjoyed it very much and I think anyone would really like it. -
As a long time pen-pal, I was excited for this one. The storyline was a bit scattershot, vacillating between current and past, with a strange tie in to her father's illness and references to his pen-pals that didnt quite jive when, at the end, the truth all came out. (Her father's illness is the catalyst for her seeking the past it seems, when she finds old letters in the basement).
I have to admit that it seems far fetched that this one girl from working class Sydney would herself become a renown journalist and author, married to same, and also befriend someone who would in turn find fame... These things don't happen to awkward 15 year old girls! I should know! I remember seeking out pen-pals at the same age, and I certainly don't have a story nearly as fantastic! (I lucked out and have had a 20+ year pen-friendship with a fantastic soul rather than several short lived ones)
The story was a lot more journalist than pen-pal, but it was really interesting that she eventually lived a life that allowed her to seek out these voices from her past, and to come full circle and see how their lives differed from her imaginations and wishes for them. -
Very well written and not what I expected.
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It took me a while to get into this book, as it felt like another exploration of early life with parents, who were my parents etc, and it comes nowhere near the richness of Poppy in that regard.
But once Brooks got on to writing about penfriends, and especially her journeys as an adult to meet the people with whom she corresponded as a child and teenager, the book took off for me. Lively and astute; interesting people and observations on Australia, France, Israel and the US.
I'd give it 3.5.
Update, August 2016
Book club discussion last Saturday. Most enjoyed the first sections on her family and there was much speculation on the support each gave her in their different ways, the effects on children whose parents behave very differently under different circumstances (the father who came home drunk twice a week and had to be avoided on those evenings), and on the gaps in the story, things not explained but left in the wings. All enjoyed the second part of the book in which she visits those pen friends, so carefully chosen many years earlier. -
I really liked "Year of Wonders" and had high hopes for this book. You'd think that a book titled "Foreign Correspondence: A Pen Pal's Journey from Down Under to All Over" would be centered around exactly this - penpalling. Unfortunately, penpalling plays just a side-note to the author's reminiscences of her parents, her childhood and teenager years in an unspectacular Sydney neighborhood, and finally her travels as a journalist. The first part of the book in particular was extremely disappointing, and I basically just cross-read most of the pages. The descriptions of her correspondences were very short and shallow. It sure would have been nice to read more excerpts of the letters! With the exception of Joannie, all of the author's other penpals immediately disappeared again into nowhere after the initial introduction, and I kept thinking "WHERE on earth are those great penpalling stories that I have been waiting for?" I enjoyed the second part better, but it was not anything special, either. With all that being said, I give this book 2.5 stars.
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The first part was nice, but rather hard to plunge into. I would want to compare it to a steam engine that needs time to gain speed. Geraldine describes her youth, the dull (in her eyes) world of Sydney, at the end of the world.
When Geraldine grew older, her world grows and her writing takes the reader along. Finding friends to write to, growing up, go to work and finally going to look for the pals she wrote to in her youth.
The more pages I truned, the more interesting, recognizable it became.
I felt connected to the story, although we are a world apart geographically speaking, and also a few years in time.
The further I read in the book, the more I liked it. And now I've finished, I'm almost sad to close it and stop reading.
I think I'll read it again. Too bad that I know now how it ends. But the joy of reading this again will make up for that. -
I was recommending this book before I was half way through I was so captivated. There's something about the yearning of a young girl, wanting to break out, explore, described with love and care by the adult version. I loved the pen pal journeys, loved the family relations, as well as getting an insight into Australia in the '60s and onwards. It was beautiful to see Geraldine's journey regarding her own viewpoints, challenged by the range of pen pals she had.
Highly recommend, and wish I had listened to the audio version by the author. -
This book is so much more than simply a story about penfriends - Brooks weaves her personal narrative and childhood obsessions in with her story, to show why she sought the particular penpals she wrote to. I enjoyed reading this a lot and it makes me want to pull out the stationery and write to my friends once again - a feeling I haven't had in a while.
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Loved. What a gem.
Transporting. Enlightening. Provocative. Wise. And in the end, truly delightful.
Geraldine Brooks is a true craftsman of the written word. -
Interesting story, I don't like when facts about Israel are mis-stated.
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When I was a teenager, I had two penfriends in France, one in New Zealand and one in South Africa, and my sister had a penfriend in one of the new black South African homelands. I still enjoy writing and receiving long letters, but nowadays I only write one long letter a year which I send to all our friends and family at Christmastime. So it's quite disappointing that most people only send us an impersonal Christmas card. Apart from that I keep in contact with Facebook, and that is another good way to send each other our news, but still not as fun as a real letter in a real envelope with real attractive stamps.
I never became as close to any of my penfriends as Geraldine Brooks did to Joannie, but it is not surprising that their relationship developed in the way it did, as they were both shy, lonely and intense youngsters obsessed with the same things and had the same idealistic view of the world. Joannie's story was tragic and particularly poignant for me, as one of my sister's childhood friends (also the sister of one of my best friends) fell victim to the same disease when she went to university. I recognise Geraldine's feeling of living in a different world from Joannie, as although my New Zealand penfriend started off with me as an enthusiastic girl, she left the schoolgirl world behind long before me, going to live with her boyfriend in a mobile home, and later getting married, at which point we lost contact. I do sometimes wonder what she is doing now, but I don't think I'd go to the extreme of trying to find her in real life.
Just as Geraldine had some penfriends with whom it didn't really click, I had a much shorter and less interesting correspondence with one of my French penfriends, and I can remember very little about her. I still write (at Christmas) to my other French penfriend, but we have joint family history (her grandparents sheltered my grandfather and his friend in WWII when they were cut off from their regiment, we visited each other every summer in our teens, and she came with her mother and sister to my wedding).
Back to the book. Geraldine Brooks writes very well, and I found the description of the differences between an American and Australian childhood and teenage years very moving. I also enjoyed the stories of how she went to search for her other penfriends, especially the tale of how she finds her penfriend in Nazareth when the lady at the tourist information office asks the local taxi drivers, as they know every family! I was also surprised to learn that there are Christian Arabs, as I had previously assumed that all Arabs are Muslim (not having thought about it too hard, obviously). -
I really like Geraldine Brooks's historical fiction. After reading all four of her works of fiction, I found myself becoming more curious about her background as a foreign correspondent. This work of nonfiction combined snippets of information on her career with biographical information and stories of her international pen pals. She deftly captured what is was like to grow up in 1960s and 1970s Australia and how this impacted her intellectual and political development. It provided some context for her stories of her pen pal letters.
The second part of the book, where Brooks actually travels and meets her pen pals many years later as an adult, was especially interesting. After all, how many people have had pen pals as children that they've fallen out of touch with? I can certainly recall a couple of pen pals of my own--one I wrote to through my high school French class, one I wrote to for my college Russian course. The concept of actually tracking them down many years later (before the age of Facebook and iPhones, no less) was fascinating to me. It could have easily gone wrong. Instead, Brooks's stories of meeting her pen pals were all very interesting and touching--and in the case of her American pen pal Joannie, utterly tragic. -
This is a compelling, wonderful memoir. As an adolescent in suburban Sydney, Australia, Geraldine Brooks began a life-long fascination with other cultures and people across the world. To quench her curiosity and expand her horizons, she corresponded with pen-pals in the Middle East, Europe, and America. Then, twenty years later, after Brooks had worked as a reporter for the The Sydney Morning Herald,, had completed a masters in journalism on scholarship at Columbia University, and had married and worked as a foreign correspondent in war-torn zones for The Wall Street Journal, she set out to find her former pen-pals around the globe. We learn of Brooks' childhood experiences and emerging values, and her pals come alive for us as we read their stories of battles of anorexia, of surviving war and prejudices, of living in a provincial village,and of a route to fame.
If you haven't read Geraldine Brooks, put her on your to-read lists! -
In Geraldine Brooks' memoir, she recounts her childhood in 1950's/60's Sydney, Australia. At that time she felt very isolated from the world and wanted to meet new people and learn about other cultures. She takes up writing to pen-pals in far away countries. When she became an adult and started working she found that she didn't have much to write letters and lost touch with her pen-pals. Many years later she finds the old letters and decides to travel around the world and find out what happened in their lives. Her discoveries are a mix of funny, sad, and interesting.
I have been writing to pen-pals since I was thirteen. I found I shared many of her experiences in corresponding to people around the world. I have had over 100 pen-pals so I doubt I will ever have the time and money to look for all of them. But I have met some of my pen-pals and remain close friends with them. -
Geraldine Brooks is one of my favorite authors, so when I stumbled over this one by her that I had somehow missed, I was thrilled. It is a memoir of her 1950s and 60s childhood in Australia, where she and her family lived in a couple of suburbs on the western edge of Sydney, definitely not a fashionable address. She decides to seek out pen pals in far-flung places in order to discover how others her age are living around the world, and this key event in her life resonates right through to the present day.
I loved the book...no surprise there. As always, she writes with wonderful clarity and insight, sharing honestly what her life has been like and how her interactions with others have affected who she is. Another lovely read from Ms. Brooks...thank you! -
This book made me think about my penpals from childhood. I had a penpal from France when I was 13. Even though it was only 17 years ago, I can still remember how far away and unknowable she seemed. I still remember the graphing paper she wrote on and her (what I now know to be) distinctly French handwriting. I wonder if this book will hold up. It seems like the world has grown so much smaller since the internet became what it now is. I don't think people all that much younger than I am can relate to this book at all. That seems so sad to me.
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Excellent read. Thoroughly enjoyable and relatable. As someone who enjoys writing letters, this story has made me want to find pen pals from faraway and remote places.
The author has led an interesting life, and the sections about her travels to war torn and famine afflicted counties during her stint as a foreign correspondence were really interesting. Her journey to find her pen pals from over twenty years ago was an incredible feat, but considering she's a reporter, I guess her investigative skills are well developed. A great book, with an interesting concept. :')
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Great book. I don't always enjoy memoirs, but I have liked Geraldine Brooks as a writer for many years and thought this might be a nice read. It was. I liked getting to know her better as a person and she wrote with the usual attention to detail that she does with her fiction writing. The descriptions of places she visited to get in touch with her now adult pen pals made me feel as though I was traveling with her, especially her descriptions of Israel. Having been there myself, I could smell the smells, hear the noises, taste the tastes, and experience the sensations she did.
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I’ve now read all of Brooks’ books except for Nine Parts of Desire … and I have loved every one. This one is a memoir of Brooks’ growing-up years, told through pen-pal letters and friendships with kids all over the world. As an adult, Brooks found the letters and took it upon herself to find all of her lost pen-pals. As with all of her books, this one is well-researched and documented, vivid, and makes me long to see, smell, and taste each part of the world she describes.
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A wonderful autobiography from one of my favorite authors. Brooks tells her story through her delight in collecting and writing to her pen pals-- her way of learning about the world from what she thinks is a boring backwater in suburban Sydney. She uses her platform as a journalist later in life to track down those very people who opened her eyes as a teenager. I mourn the loss of real letter writing and receiving in my life!
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Geraldine Brooks uses a lovely framework for her memoir. She looks back to a time when she was a pen pal to a number of contemporaries around the world, a time she also sought a bigger world for herself. After a career as a reporter and war correspondent, she revisits the long-distance acquaintances. What results is a thoughtful reverie on place, family, ambition and contentment. A nice change of pace in the genre. It makes me wonder what kind of storytelling happened in Brooks' reporting.
