Foreign Correspondence

I loved this book. I happened on it by chance; Foreign Correspondence was the first interesting-sounding and available book available for the Nook (my new toy!) from the library. Geraldine Brooks is a former Foreign Correspondent for the Wall Street Journal. This book is her memoir, revisiting her childhood in Sydney, and especially the penpals that featured so prominently in it. Driven by a desire to broaden her worldview and interact with kids from other countries, Geraldine begins collecting penpals, corresponding with each in earnest and glimpsing life in Israel, France, and the United States.

Geraldine eventually becomes a journalist and then a foreign correspondent, at one point writing of her time in the Middle East, “I was on the Frequent Flyer Program from hell” (p. 147). Later, she begins to track down each of her former penpals, visiting their home towns and finding each one to see how life has treated them. While I loved the light, conversational writing style, I was especially taken by the entire premise of the book. Certainly my own interest in the broader world was shaped in no small part by penpals from France, Germany, Japan, and Brazil; I could connect with the author’s emotions and motivations in a way that is rare when reading a memoir.