Holloway - Some good stuff, some falling short

This was a little different. It was short – 200 pages – and it focused more on another character, namely Monique. I noticed a few good things and a few bad.

She begins by receiving the invite and then giving a history of the country, Mali. This works. Starting from the beginning is a good thing. Giving us some background is very good. The earlier the better, I think.

I made this note in chapter one about character development:

“I could be wrong, but it seems so important to describe the main character of a story early on (in this case Holloway herself and then Monique) - or else the reader must make it up - going on the little provided - for example all I know of Holloway is she's 22, from Ohio, this is her first birth, she's a PCV in Mali and she's nervous - it annoys me that I have only a vague idea of what the writers look like - Tidwell, Packer, Erdman, Thubron, Theroux and now Holloway) - I write this thinking of characters in fiction”

Holloway introduces John, a fellow PCV who she has some interest in. I liked this. For the first time, we get to hear about fellow volunteers. Others may not understand this problem I have with this, but as a Returned PCV I know how key the relationships with fellow volunteers was to survival. They kept you sane. Holloway mentions many PCVs marry fellow PCVs, but what about the inevitability that the volunteer stationed nearest you becomes your best friend, even if you’d never have gotten along otherwise.

This is small, but I’m glad Holloway takes time, in chapter three, to describe being sick. I think all the others do this as well, but like the friendships, the illness is key to the story. PCVs are sick and scared all the time. This is truth.

I have two notes in chapter four I ‘d like to cover. One good, one bad. The bad is when Holloway, out of nowhere, “zooms in” on a scene and we suddenly get her spilling coffee, being clumsy. This is a good thing, actually, if done more often. But on its own it only brought questions as to why she chose to do that (it happens once more in chapter six when John gets on his bike).

The good is where she is honest with her feelings about death. She goes to a funeral and flashes back to her Granny’ funeral. The feelings of helplessness at the dead person’s side is honest. This reaching back into her memory, to make sense of things out of what she knows, is a flash of brilliance. A small flash. This should be done more, as well, actually.

In chapter six I noticed something new. The other memoirs may have had this though I missed it, but Holloway, perhaps inadvertently, uses an almost imperceptible time marker – the growth of Monique’s baby Basil. Holloway will give brief descriptions of Basil chapter after chapter. And somehow this grounds the reader – like milestones. It seems these are key. If I am to see the writer grow and change, I need these milestones to measure. I think this is important.

Two things in chapter eight. I thought Holloway failed to make John a round character, though I think he should have been. Second, she brings up a hilarious anecdote about a donkey, and though it made me laugh I then became depressed because I realized that was all I was going to get. In case I haven’t mentioned this before, I feel strongly that PC memoirs should have much, much more humor. Each book had a tad – mostly embarrassing things – but, damn, I know that humor was one of the other keys to survival (food, drink, clothing, shelter, PC friends and laughter being the list). Times were hard, man. The highs were high and the lows were low. And if you didn’t laugh, you went crazy or went home, many times both.

Chapter ten was Holloway leaving. Though she mused over what she’d miss, the feelings didn’t come through. This stood in stark contrast to the last chapter, in which a seemingly older, more mature writer emerges and writes honestly of her feelings:

"I thought, desperately, selfishly, that if only she had stayed with me in the States, and had never some back to Mali, she might be alive today." (194)

I got the feeling that Holloway wrote most of the book when she was still young and the last chapter when she finally went to get it published, seven years later. Whatever the reason, this is good stuff.

Recapping: good is grounding the reader (with background info, with milestones along the way), fleshing out/developing the main characters, being truthful and thorough (acknowledge the illness, the friendships/bonds with Fellow PCVs, making sense of the world based on past experiences); bad was ‘zooming in’ on a scene randomly (do it all the time or not at all – find the balance or something), leaving out the humor (don’t make the thing too serious – you’re no saint), failing to convey your feelings.