Polite Society by Senegal RPCV Melanie Sumner.
Polite Society
by Melanie Sumner.
Houghton Mifflin/Seymour Lawrence, 204 pages, $21.95.
After an opening section on marital discord in the diplomatic service, Ms. Sumner's fiction shifts to an unrelated character in the same area. Her heroine, Darren, has joined the Peace Corps for want of any better idea, and finds herself in Senegal with inadequate French and nothing to do, because the university is shut down. This may be just as well for the students, because this volunteer has no training or experience in teaching, and her notion of suitable material for a Senegalese English class is the work of William Faulkner. Her rootless situation bewilders Darren, who resorts to gin and local lovers and general blundering about in an alien society. Some of the action is funny and some is brutal, the African background and characters are always interesting, and the writing is always adroit. One may, however, eventually become a bit weary of a heroine totally devoid of common sense
