Katie Stew

I love Pat Conroy. If I was having a fantasy dinner party with anyone in the world, he would be on my list. Right up there with Tina Fey, Julia Child, Frida Kahlo, and John Stewart. Now that would be a fun party.

I just finished his memoir, “The Water is Wide”. It is about about the year he spent teaching on Daufuskie Island, off the coast of South Carolina. In Conroy’s early twenties, he considered joining the Peace Corps, wanting to make a difference in the world. He was teaching at a high school at the time and the idea came to him to do his outreach closer to home. He heard about the terrible conditions in this remote, poor, predominately African American island school and decided that he could make a real difference there.

When he got to the school, he met with his class of 10-13 year olds and was appalled by the lack of education that the children had received. At the end of his first day, he had accumulated the following information about the children.

“Seven of my students could not recite the alphabet. Three children could not spell their names. Eighteen children thought Savannah, Georgia, was the largest city in the world. Savannah was the only city any of the kids could name. Eighteen children had never seen a hill- eighteen children had never heard the words integration and segregation. Four children could not add two plus two. Eighteen children did not know we were fighting a war in Southeast Asia. Of course, eighteen children had never heard of Asia. One child was positive that John Kennedy was the first President of the United States. Seventeen children agreed with that child. Eighteen children concurred with the pre-Copernican Theory that the earth was the center of the universe. Two children did not know how old they were. Five children did not know their birth dates. Four children could not count to ten. The four oldest thought the Civil War was fought between the Germans and the Japs.”

He says after learning all this information, “The job I had taken to assuage the demon of do-gooderism was a bit more titanic than anticipated.” Talk about an understatement.

The book documents the year he spent with the children and how he struggled to share with them the world beyond their island. He shared with them both classical and pop music, took them on field trips, brought people from all walks of life to the island to teach them, and generally tried to open their eyes and prepare them for the day when they would leave their island. The book is filled with stories that will make you laugh out loud and will bring a tear to your eye. The kids are funny, charming, and brave in the face of the world that has placed them in such poverty and ignorance and it is wonderful to see them grow throughout the book.

Conroy also shares the challenges presented to him by the system. The education system did not want to hear about the problems on the island and began to consider Conroy the problem for bringing them to light. After his first year, there were a series of political and legal fights that led to his permanent dismissal. It is a sad end to the story, to see a man getting pushed aside by the political machine, but overall, this is a story of hope and the ability of each of us to make a difference in the world.

By the time he left, none of the children were great writers or mathematicians. They weren’t poets or nobel laureates. But they might have been given a fighting chance in the world after his year there. They were certainly going to be less adrift in the sea of humanity they would face when they left their little island than they otherwise would have been. Pat Conroy undoubtably changed those children’s lives forever. Upon reading this book, he might just change yours too.

I love science fiction. I think that it gives us a view into what could be, where our civilization could go if we continue down certain paths. Science fiction has opened ideas in our collective consciousness that every now and then, become reality.

I also tend to enjoy a good zombie story. There are many psychological theories out there about why zombies have become such a pop culture idea in the last few decades. What is America’s fascination? Where does it spring from? I think it is an extension of our fear of the diseases and pandemics that we hear about in the news all the time. Most mythical creatures such as vampires or werewolves are selective in how they are propagated. One of those creatures picks a particular individual to join in their select group. Not so with zombies. The scary thing about zombies is that they can get anyone. They aren’t selective. They are all encompassing. They are mindless and unending. They spread like a disease until everyone is infected. I think that is something that reaches a basic fear for many.

Enough waxing philosophical though. About this book. World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks is one of the best pieces of science fiction that I have come across in a long time. For me, I saw it and said, oh another book about zombies. It didn’t really inspire a lot of excitement, but I was about to get on a plane and thought it would be a entertaining read. Having read such trendy zombie books as Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (which was awful) made me go into this book with very low expectations. However, I was more than pleased. It is well written, thoughtful, and incredibly engaging. In fact, I’ve read it twice since purchasing. I never got around to writing this post after reading it the first time. I decided last week that I should go back and do a review and thought I would read a chapter or two before starting so that I could get the feel for the book again. I couldn’t put it down. Four days later, I had completed it all over and enjoyed it just as much the second time.

The premise for the book is that after the zombie war, the writer is working for the UN to collect data from all over the world. He is supposed to get statistics and figures of losses and gains made over the ten year battle. What he comes back with are stories, interviews with people all over the world. He gives the UN the statistics and puts the stories into this book. It is not told in a typical narrative, but through dozens of first person interviews. We talk to military commanders, veterans, common people, children, politicians, and scientists about their experiences with the zombie apocalypse. The one thing they all have in common is that they are survivors. The stories are graphic, tragic, shocking, and feel very, very real. You hear about the extreme things that people did to survive as well as what civilization has to do to rebuild. The stories from “The Great Panic”, when the news first broke and misinformation ruled are tragic. By the end of the Panic, the world is decimated. But it is also a story of hope, for humanity eventually takes back the planet. We learn, we adapt, we survive.

I really think this is one of the better scifi things I’ve read in a long time. One of the quotes on the book jacket is perfect: “Probably the most topical and literate scare since Orson Welles’s War of the Worlds radio broadcast.” Another person refers to him as “The Studs Terkel of zombie journalism”. I just love that comparison. The book is well written. It is hard to go so far as to say this book is fun, since it is dark and often disturbing, but it is entertaining. It feels real and makes you relate to the characters and experiences. It is certainly worth a read. I have not seen the movie yet, but read that it has very little to do with the book. So, think of them as two separate things. I can’t speak for the movie, but this book is sure to rock your world.