Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #523300 in Books
• Published on: 2008-08-05
• Released on: 2008-08-05
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 368 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780805088472
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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From Publishers Weekly
A young reporter embarks on a dangerous adventure in Salak's gripping debut novel, a blend of Heart of Darkness and Tomb Raider. Like her protagonist, Marika Vecera, award-winning journalist Salak has traveled solo—and narrowly escaped death—in the world's most remote and terrifying places, including war-torn Congo and the interior of Papua New Guinea. Marika, an ambitious journalist, travels to discover the truth about war correspondent Robert Lewis, who has observed some of the modern world's greatest atrocities. He is believed to have committed suicide, but a letter from a missionary leaves Marika thinking he may still be alive in the wilds of Papua New Guinea. She sets off on her quest, and eventually malaria, ritual murder and arduous trekking through the wilderness lead Marika to some startling discoveries and a pathway out of her own past trauma. While the book can be harrowing (the graphic descriptions of torture are sobering and hard to put out of mind), it offers Marika a redemptive optimism in the face of the worst humanity has to offer. (Aug.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From The Washington Post
From The Washington Post's Book World/washingtonpost.com Reviewed by Elizabeth Hand "Traveling is the ruin of all happiness!" wrote the 18th-century novelist Fanny Burney. It's a conclusion we might draw from Kira Salak's harrowing first novel, The White Mary, an account of a young woman's plunge into her own heart of darkness during a journey across Papua New Guinea. Returning to the United States after a nightmarish encounter while reporting on war in the Congo, Salak's protagonist, Marika Vecera, is withdrawn and unable to reconnect with her supernaturally patient psychologist boyfriend, Seb. She's obviously suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, which happens to be the subject of Seb's dissertation. But Marika's dissociative state dissolves when she learns of the suicide of her idol, Robert Lewis. A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and bestselling author, Lewis was "probably the most famous writer and foreign correspondent of his generation," a man who "had devoted his life to relating the plights of those suffering most in the world." Marika worshipped Lewis, a man she never met but who served as a kind of absent mentor and father figure. What could possibly drive such a person to drown himself off the coast of Malaysia? Marika begins researching Lewis's life, determined to write his biography. A visit to his sister turns up a disturbing letter from a missionary recently returned from Papua New Guinea. "Approximately five months ago, while engaged in evangelical work in remoter regions of the country, I came across an unlikely occurrence: a white man with a beard and glasses, who bore an exact resemblance to Robert Lewis, the writer and journalist. . . . As far as I am concerned, the man I saw in PNG was undoubtedly him." Marika's research becomes an obsession that takes her to PNG. There she engages Tobo, a sorcerer who reluctantly agrees to lead this "white meri" -- the Pidgin term for "white woman" -- into the interior to search for Lewis, first by river and then on foot. With its hellish journey through a spectacularly inhospitable landscape, The White Mary necessarily evokes Heart of Darkness and features more leeches than John Huston's film "The African Queen." Salak's descriptions of the jungle passage are compelling and dreamlike. Even stronger are flashbacks of Marika in Bodo and a wrenching, horrific account of Lewis's capture and torture in East Timor. Salak's own journalistic experiences -- she covered the Rwandan genocide and the 2003 war in the Congo, among other conflicts -- have armed her with heartfelt, if indelibly grim, insights into man's capacity for "an endless stream of the worst, most inconceivable acts of inhumanity." The White Mary contains extremely graphic scenes, but they are never gratuitous, and Marika has the courage to ask the hard questions about such "diabolical expressions of the human soul." "Was it possible to see such things and be the same afterward? To live that 'normal' life? She didn't know. . . . 'Insanity' had struck her as the sanest possible response to such a place. The specter of not going insane was enough to haunt her." But the novel's momentum is thrown off by Salak's often clumsy interweaving of these various narrative threads. Marika's romantic relationship with Seb is unconvincing and somewhat ludicrous, rife with platitudes gleaned from 12-step programs. Yet Marika's friendship with the sorcerer Tobo is depicted with remarkable delicacy and, in its final pages, helps her achieve something close to rapture. "It is always advisable to take darkness out of a person," Tobo observes, "but not to put it in." In The White Mary, Salak shows the courage of facing down that darkness and the inescapable price it exacts upon one's soul.
Copyright 2008, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

From Booklist
Marika Vecera is a freelance correspondent, available to cover all the world’s wars and atrocities, hooked on the danger and anguished thrill of bringing news of incredible inhumanities to safer parts of the world. She herself is familiar with senseless suffering; she lost her father, a Czech dissident writer, to murder by the state. After coming too close to her own death in Congo, Marika returns to the tentative home she has made in Boston and meets Sebastian Gilman, a professor who tries to humanize her. But, eventually, she sets off again, this time to Papua New Guinea, to complete a biography of Robert Lewis, the Pulitzer-winning writer who inspired her own career. Her guide, Tobo, is skeptical of “the white mary,” who, in her noisy restlessness, fails to understand the most basic relationships between people and place. In search of Robert Lewis, Marika comes face-to-face with her own fears in the harshest test of faith and her ability to survive. Salak, herself a war correspondent, brings to life the incredible internal struggles for witnesses and reporters of war atrocities. --Vanessa Bush

Customer Reviews

Only the darkest depths can shed some light
The main reason why I chose to read this book was the fact that I have just finished watching the last season of Lost which has rapidly turned into one of my favorite shows of all time and I needed a quick jungle fix to prolong the euphoria. Rather than just being a good read, "The White Mary" surpassed my expectations and was one of the best books I have ever read, I feel so lucky that I decided to read this!

Intense, addictive and at some passages almost unreadable but in a good way, the world of young journalist who decides to find her inspirational favorite writer Robert Lewis is turned upside down as she dives into a life changing adventure. Marika Vecera has had enough of dangerous journalistic work overseas in war ridden countries where murder and thievery rule daily life, when her relationship suffers at her own decisions she decides to follow hear heart and seek out the one man who can give her answers. The problem is that he has been proclaimed dead due to a suicide possible by drowning in Malaysia, but rumors that reach Marika about his sighting in the most remote jungles of Papua New Guinea spark her interest at finding him, no matter how dangerous the journey. When she starts looking for him her outlook on life is weak, she is not afraid of death but the more her life is threatened with various occurrences she learns new things about herself that open the reader's eyes to deep corners of our own souls. The journey is fascinating but the future often bleak and the reader never knows when it will all suddenly end. I can't remember the last time I was so engrossed in such a rich, beautiful novel.

Half way through reading this I looked up the author, Kira Salak and found her website. Her own journeys to almost all the continents are documented with stunning photos; I spend a whole afternoon browsing her site, looking at the scrapbook of her life, so enormous and exciting that her life looks like an adventure movie in comparison to someone like myself. Through her eyes and words I too feel that the world is large and remote but accessible for those who really want to see each nook and cranny. I can't wait to read more of her work; this is one strong and brilliant woman.

- Kasia S.

Beautiful and intense, but flawed
Marika Vecera is a fearless war journalist, traveling to war zones that many male reporters have avoided. When her idol, the famous journalist Robert Lewis, commits suicide, Marika feels driven to write his biography. In the course of researching her book, Marika receives a letter from a missionary who claims to have seen Lewis in Papua New Guinea. Marika drops everything to follow up the lead, embarking on a grueling journey that may cost the journalist her life. As the story progresses, we see that Marika's quest is as much a journey to find herself as it is to find Robert Lewis.

The White Mary is one story told in two parts. The main part of the book covers Marika's search for Lewis in the jungles of Papua New Guinea, while the events that drove her to that search are told in a series of flashbacks. These flashbacks, though insightful looks into Marika's character, are the weakest points in the story. I found Marika's interaction with her boyfriend Seb to be unrealistic. The dialogue between the two of them just felt stilted and forced. Marika is an interesting, multi-faceted character, but with each flashback, I found her less likable. Her journey ultimately changes her for the better, but that change came too late for me.

There were elements of this book that I loved. Salak's descriptions of the jungle are absolutely breathtaking. Tobo, Marika's guide through the jungle, is a fascinating character. Clever, resourceful and wise, he saves Marika's life on more than one occasion. Kira Salak, like Marika, is an accomplished war journalist, and her experience is evident in the descriptions of Marika's time spent in various war zones.

The White Mary is gritty, intense and, at times, disturbing. There are graphic depictions of torture and rape, and one scene towards the end of the novel is so disturbingly vivid that it may turn even the strongest of stomachs.

I wanted to like this book a lot more than I did. As I stated earlier, there were many things that I loved about this book, but in the end, the things I didn't like stood out more. While I can't give it an enthusiastic endorsement, I am glad that I took the time to read The White Mary.

Very well-written and interesting book!
I got this book as an advance reader's edition through the amazon Vine program. Not normally the type of book I read, but it sounded interesting.

Kira Salak herself has a very interesting background. If you go to this book on amazon, she has posted some links to photos she took both in the Congo and Papua New Guinea.

The book itself deals with Marika Vecera; a journalist who covers stories in war torn countries. At a talk she meets a psychologist named Seb; who introduces her to happiness and a different world where Marika isn't constantly under threat of death. After a particularly dangerous assignment in the Congo, Marika hears of the death of Robert Lewis, a man whose journalism she has long admired. When rumors surface of him having been seen in Papau New Guina she decides to check it out. Will her trip to Papau New Guinea destroy Marika's relationship with Seb? Will she find Robert Lewis? Will she live through her trip through the dense jungle? These are all questions the book answers.

The book was very well written and very gripping. It bounces from the past that lead to her trip to Papau New Guinea (PNG) to the present where she is fighting her way through the jungle. I really found the subject intriguing and had a lot of trouble putting this book down. The characters were interesting and the setting very unique. You could really tell that Salak had experienced these places and been here before.

This book was not for the faint of heart. The descriptions of war scenes are vivid as is the the gruesome trip through the jungle. The part of this book I found most interesting were the justifications that war journalists had for why they do this work. It was neat to see into the mind of a war journalist and try to understand what those people get out of doing such a crazily dangerous job.

Of course Marika's journey of learning how to live through happiness versus sadness in also interesting. As is some of her contemplation on why she has such a hard time living a normal day to day live. At one point she explains that listening to Seb in the kitchen seems so unimportant and trivial considering that a day ago she was struggling to survive shootings, bombings and kidnapping in the Congo. It made me grateful for the life I live.

Salak is a great writer and this was an awesome, eye-opening book.
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