2007.01.15: January 15, 2007: Headlines: Figures: COS - Uzbekistan: Writing - Uzbekistan: Publisher's Weekly: Tom Bissell is a seasoned journalist and travel writer, as well as an accomplished author of fiction

Peace Corps Online: Directory: Uzbekistan: Special Report: Uzbekistan RPCV and Author Tom Bissell: Tom Bissell: Newest Stories: 2007.01.15: January 15, 2007: Headlines: Figures: COS - Uzbekistan: Writing - Uzbekistan: Publisher's Weekly: Tom Bissell is a seasoned journalist and travel writer, as well as an accomplished author of fiction

By Admin1 (admin) (ppp-70-245-26-66.dsl.okcyok.swbell.net - 70.245.26.66) on Thursday, February 15, 2007 - 9:41 am: Edit Post

Tom Bissell is a seasoned journalist and travel writer, as well as an accomplished author of fiction

Tom Bissell is a seasoned journalist and travel writer, as well as an accomplished author of fiction

"Bissell is charming, well read and knowledgeable, able to spar with the people he meets about the troubled history of their countries. His endearing awkwardness is his secret weapon; it's how he gets the goods. "Never underestimate apparent incompetence as a very cunning method to get people to say things they never otherwise would," Bissell says. This simultaneously genuine and strategic persona earns the trust of Bissell's readers as well. In his books, Tom Bissell is just an average guy who happens to have taken a trip to some far-flung part of the world, with a notebook and tape recorder at the ready." Author Tom Bissell served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Uzbekistan.

Tom Bissell is a seasoned journalist and travel writer, as well as an accomplished author of fiction

Ramblin' Man
by Craig Morgan Teicher -- 1/15/2007

Tom Bissell is a seasoned journalist and travel writer, as well as an accomplished author of fiction. With an eye for detail and a humorous, passionate style, he's also a hell of a tour guide. As we weave through the chaotic streets of Rome, where he's living this year as a winner of the Rome Prize from the American Academy in Rome, he points up at a picturesque balcony overlooking a square and tells me, "Mussolini spoke to a crowd from there, and he was furious when a screaming ambulance siren interrupted him." A turn into an unpromising alley opens onto the Pantheon, and a hilltop building with a stunning view of the city.

For a guy born and raised in Escanaba, Mich.—a small, working-class city—Bissell, 32, looks surprisingly at home in the Eternal City. Crossing a Roman street is a game of chicken, the oncoming cars ferocious. Bissell slaloms through the frenzy like an expert.

For all of his confidence, Bissell is also a bit clumsy. His bumping into low walls and snagging eye-level tree branches is reminiscent of his antics in his two travel books—Chasing the Sea, a memoir about Bissell's Peace Corps experiences and an investigation of the environmental disaster around the Aral Sea in Uzbekistan; and the forthcoming The Father of All Things (Pantheon, Mar.) in which Bissell and his father, John, return to Vietnam, where John served as a marine in the war—and the travel pieces he writes for magazines like Harper'sand the New Republic. Similar characters and places pop up in the stories in God Lives in St. Petersburg(Pantheon, 2005), Bissell's only published fiction so far.

Bissell is charming, well read and knowledgeable, able to spar with the people he meets about the troubled history of their countries. His endearing awkwardness is his secret weapon; it's how he gets the goods. "Never underestimate apparent incompetence as a very cunning method to get people to say things they never otherwise would," Bissell says. This simultaneously genuine and strategic persona earns the trust of Bissell's readers as well. In his books, Tom Bissell is just an average guy who happens to have taken a trip to some far-flung part of the world, with a notebook and tape recorder at the ready.

Bissell's mother, Muff, the daughter of a Marine Corps colonel, met Bissell's father at the base in Beaufort, S.C., where he was stationed after his tour in Vietnam. Muff was a great supporter of everything her son did: "If I was shooting people from a clock tower," says Bissell, "she was the kind of mother who would say, 'Why did those people get in front of poor Tommy's bullets?' " As The Father of All Things explains, Bissell's father was deeply scarred by the war—"he had a lot of anger about how that war ended, how it was perceived and how he was perceived because of it"—which created a long-lasting rift in the family. Bissell's new book is in part the story of how Bissell and his father closed that rift. For Bissell's father, the years after Vietnam were clouded by alcoholism and bitterness. Bissell's parents divorced in 1977, when he was three, but, as he says, "of all the divorced dynamics I know, mine was pretty amazing. My parents lived two blocks away from each other."

Growing up, Bissell remembers "being told that had the military been allowed to do what the military does, we would have 'won' the war." Over the course of the travelogue that is the centerpiece of The Father of All Things, as Bissell questions his father about his Vietnam memories, it becomes clear that John Bissell now sees the war in a very different light. The Bissells' trip ends in a joyful meeting with a Vietnamese man who fought against the Americans: "I drank, and cried, and drank, and nothing worked. Now I'm here. In your wonderful country," says John. Bissell immediately knew this moment was perfect for his book; "I couldn't have asked for a better ending," he says.

Writing the book also fostered a powerful sense of mutual admiration and gratitude between Bissell and his father. "Now that I've actually been to Vietnam with my dad, and also to Iraq"—for a recent Harper'spiece—"where I spent time with marines doing exactly what my dad did in Vietnam, I got a sense firsthand of the tension they feel and the kind of experience they're having," Bissell says. "I realize that a lot of my dad's anger was less a product of the war and the marines than it was of what being perceived as a kind of failure—a soldier who lost a war—would do to someone. Forming my own opinions about what war feels like, I don't have to defer to him anymore. What's interesting to me now is how war carries over into one's understanding of the world afterwards, how it affects the family dynamic and how a man sees himself." Rich with historical facts and observations about U.S. involvement in Vietnam, at heart The Father of All Things is a book about growing up: "The fact that my father was willing to go into all this with me, the fact that he was willing to let his son exploit his life in this way to the putative benefit of thousands of strangers is totally extraordinary."

As for the expectations and pressures of writing nonfiction, Bissell believes it's essential that a writer maintain a trust with his readers. "I think it's important that people understand that anyone who writes nonfiction has to acknowledge that a huge amount of subjectivity is present, and a huge amount of distortion," he says. The first section of The Father of All Things is essentially a novella in which Bissell lets us know he is imagining his family on the traumatic night when America watched the fall of Saigon on TV, when Bissell was just a baby. After reading a draft of that section, Bissell's mother confirmed for him that there are other kinds of truth than simply the straight facts. "She called me up and said, 'How do you know all this stuff? Who told you?' I said, 'No one told me, I just made it all up.' Then she said, 'That is exactly what it felt like, that's exactly what it's like.' I was just so happy that I knew them well enough to have an accurate sense of who they were. I totally fictionalized it and made it up, but I somehow told the truth at the same time."

During his year in Rome, Bissell is doing research for his next travel book, which traces the lives and deaths of the 12 apostles. He had the idea, and the contract, for the book before finding out he'd won the Rome Prize and now jokingly wonders "if maybe the divine didn't play a larger role in my life than I was willing to grant."

We go to the massive and daunting church of San Giovanni, one of his favorite places in the city, mostly because of the stunning 10-foot-tall statues of all the apostles surrounding the main hall of the church. Bissell recounts details of the martyrdoms in each of the statues. There's Simon, who leans on the saw with which he was cut in half, and the flayed Bartholomew, who holds his own ghostly skin in his arms. It's like he's introducing friends he's known for years.




Links to Related Topics (Tags):

Headlines: January, 2007; RPCV Tom Bissell (Uzbekistan); Figures; Peace Corps Uzbekistan; Directory of Uzbekistan RPCVs; Messages and Announcements for Uzbekistan RPCVs; Writing - Uzbekistan





When this story was posted in February 2007, this was on the front page of PCOL:


Contact PCOLBulletin BoardRegisterSearch PCOLWhat's New?

Peace Corps Online The Independent News Forum serving Returned Peace Corps Volunteers
Subscribe to Peace Corps News Date: January 14 2007 No: 1059 Subscribe to Peace Corps News
Don't miss our new web site, Peace Corps News, for the latest news about the Returned Volunteer community and what is going on with the Peace Corps around the world. Subscribe to our news feed to get Peace Corps news delivered to your desk as it happens. Then visit the Peace Corps Library, History of the Peace Corps, the worldwide RPCV Directory or leave a message for the RPCV community on the RPCV Bulletin Board.

Top Stories and Breaking News PCOL Magazine Peace Corps Library RPCV Directory Sign Up

February 2, 2007: This Month's Top Stories Date: February 2 2007 No: 1063 February 2, 2007: This Month's Top Stories
Peace Corps Volunteers in Guinea Are Safe in Mali 28 Jan
Lee Wilbur writes: Muslim media images are shocking 31 Jan
Gregory Acker plays African drums for 3rd Goal 31 Jan
"Jimi Sir" now available for free internet viewing 30 Jan
Is Civilian Reserve just another Bush throwaway line? 30 Jan
Tony Hall writes: What North Korea really wants 30 Jan
Paul Tsongas remembered on 10th anniversary 28 Jan
Ben Bell attends Washington march against Iraq war 27 Jan
First Peace Corps Volunteers to Serve in Cambodia 26 Jan
Phil Hardberger sees 'golden years' ahead for San Antonio 26 Jan
Doyle wants smoking ban in Wisconsin 24 Jan
Mark Udall to run for Colorado Senate Seat 17 Jan
Meredith Walsh works with Burmese refugees 16 Jan
Tschetter spends MLK Day with Habitat for Humanity 15 Jan
Robert Buckley founds Himalayan Healers 14 Jan
James Rupert writes: An aging king in Thailand 14 Jan
Michael O'Hanlon writes: A Skeptic's Case For the Surge 14 Jan
Senator Dodd opposes Iraq surge 11 Jan
Pat Waak celebrates 2008 Democratic Convention 11 Jan
Al Kamen writes: The six rules for Congressional Junkets 10 Jan
Bill Moyers slams Bush on global warming 10 Jan
Psychological biases favor conflict rather than concession 1 Jan

January 14, 2007: This Month's Top Stories Date: January 14 2007 No: 1050 January 14, 2007: This Month's Top Stories
Dodd declares candidacy in 2008 Presidential race 11 Jan
Malawi RPCVs found "Orphan Support" 11 Jan
John Garamendi takes oath as California Lt. Governor 8 Jan
Amy Smith prepares her students for field trips to remote villages 8 Jan
CES provides loans to rural constituents in Guatemala 6 Jan
RPCV Tom Bissell writes: Rolling Estonia 5 Jan
Lance Holter writes: 1st Lt. Ehren Watada risks it all 2 Jan
Paul Theroux writes: Remember the Cicadas 2 Jan
Louise M. Pascale republishes Afghan children's songs 31 Dec
Husband remembers Niger RPCV Mary Ann Hobson 30 Dec
Bob Leventry faces problems importing organic quinoa 29 Dec
Congressmen urge increase in diplomatic and development programs 27 Dec
Family says treatment after PCV death left bitter feeling 27 Dec
Family finishes project after PCV dies in shark attack 26 Dec
Mark Ridoff writes: Productivity doesn't aid middle class 24 Dec
Dodd says begin process of getting troops out of Iraq 24 Dec
PCVs caught in street protest in Bolivia 22 Dec
Honda named to powerful Appropriations Committee 22 Dec
PCOL and NPCA collaborate on story "Snowshoe Bob" 21 Dec
Alejandro Toledo charged in Forgery Scheme 21 Dec
Michael O'Hanlon writes: The State of Iraq 20 Dec
Carl Pope writes: Renewable energy offers new jobs 20 Dec

Ron Tschetter in Morocco and Jordan Date: November 18 2006 No: 1038 Ron Tschetter in Morocco and Jordan
On his first official trip since being confirmed as Peace Corps Director, Ron Tschetter (shown at left with PCV Tia Tucker) is on a ten day trip to Morocco and Jordan. Traveling with his wife (Both are RPCVs.), Tschetter met with volunteers in Morocco working in environment, youth development, health, and small business development. He began his trip to Jordan by meeting with His Majesty King Abdullah II and Her Majesty Queen Rania Al Abdullah and discussed expanding the program there in the near future.

Election 2006: Results of RPCV Races Date: November 8 2006 No: 1024 Election 2006: Results of RPCV Races
Chris Shays claims victory in closely watched race
Jim Walsh wins re-election to Congress in close race
Tom Petri unopposed for re-election to Congress
Sam Farr wins re-election to Congress
Mike Honda wins re-election to Congress
Jim Doyle wins re-election to Wisconsin Governorship
Kinky Friedman loses in long shot bid for Texas Governor
John Garamendi elected Lt. Governor of California

The Peace Corps Library Date: July 11 2006 No: 923 The Peace Corps Library
The Peace Corps Library is now available online with over 40,000 index entries in 500 categories. Looking for a Returned Volunteer? Check our RPCV Directory or leave a message on our Bulletin Board. New: Sign up to receive our free Monthly Magazine by email, research the History of the Peace Corps, or sign up for a daily news summary of Peace Corps stories. FAQ: Visit our FAQ for more information about PCOL.

Chris Dodd's Vision for the Peace Corps Date: September 23 2006 No: 996 Chris Dodd's Vision for the Peace Corps
Senator Chris Dodd (RPCV Dominican Republic) spoke at the ceremony for this year's Shriver Award and elaborated on issues he raised at Ron Tschetter's hearings. Dodd plans to introduce legislation that may include: setting aside a portion of Peace Corps' budget as seed money for demonstration projects and third goal activities (after adjusting the annual budget upward to accommodate the added expense), more volunteer input into Peace Corps operations, removing medical, healthcare and tax impediments that discourage older volunteers, providing more transparency in the medical screening and appeals process, a more comprehensive health safety net for recently-returned volunteers, and authorizing volunteers to accept, under certain circumstances, private donations to support their development projects. He plans to circulate draft legislation for review to members of the Peace Corps community and welcomes RPCV comments.

He served with honor Date: September 12 2006 No: 983 He served with honor
One year ago, Staff Sgt. Robert J. Paul (RPCV Kenya) carried on an ongoing dialog on this website on the military and the peace corps and his role as a member of a Civil Affairs Team in Iraq and Afghanistan. We have just received a report that Sargeant Paul has been killed by a car bomb in Kabul. Words cannot express our feeling of loss for this tremendous injury to the entire RPCV community. Most of us didn't know him personally but we knew him from his words. Our thoughts go out to his family and friends. He was one of ours and he served with honor.

Meet Ron Tschetter - Our Next Director Date: September 6 2006 No: 978 Meet Ron Tschetter - Our Next Director
Read our story about Ron Tschetter's confirmation hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that was carried on C-Span. It was very different from the Vasquez hearings in 2001, very cut and dried with low attendance by the public. Among the highlights, Tschetter intends to make recruitment of baby boomers a priority, there are 20 countries under consideration for future programs, Senator Dodd intends to re-introduce his third goal Peace Corps legislation this session, Tschetter is a great admirer of Senator Coleman's quest for accountability, Dodd thinks management at PC may not put volunteers first, Dodd wants Tschetter to look into problems in medical selection, and Tschetter is not a blogger and knows little about the internet or guidelines for volunteer blogs. Read our recap of the hearings as well as Senator Coleman's statement and Tschetter's statement.

Peace Corps' Screening and Medical Clearance Date: August 19 2006 No: 964 Peace Corps' Screening and Medical Clearance
The purpose of Peace Corps' screening and medical clearance process is to ensure safe accommodation for applicants and minimize undue risk exposure for volunteers to allow PCVS to complete their service without compromising their entry health status. To further these goals, PCOL has obtained a copy of the Peace Corps Screening Guidelines Manual through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and has posted it in the "Peace Corps Library." Applicants and Medical Professionals (especially those who have already served as volunteers) are urged to review the guidelines and leave their comments and suggestions. Then read the story of one RPCV's journey through medical screening and his suggestions for changes to the process.

The Peace Corps is "fashionable" again Date: July 31 2006 No: 947 The Peace Corps is "fashionable" again
The LA Times says that "the Peace Corps is booming again and "It's hard to know exactly what's behind the resurgence." PCOL Comment: Since the founding of the Peace Corps 45 years ago, Americans have answered Kennedy's call: "Ask not what your country can do for you--ask what you can do for your country. My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man." Over 182,000 have served. Another 200,000 have applied and been unable to serve because of lack of Congressional funding. The Peace Corps has never gone out of fashion. It's Congress that hasn't been keeping pace.

PCOL readership increases 100% Date: April 3 2006 No: 853 PCOL readership increases 100%
Monthly readership on "Peace Corps Online" has increased in the past twelve months to 350,000 visitors - over eleven thousand every day - a 100% increase since this time last year. Thanks again, RPCVs and Friends of the Peace Corps, for making PCOL your source of information for the Peace Corps community. And thanks for supporting the Peace Corps Library and History of the Peace Corps. Stay tuned, the best is yet to come.

History of the Peace Corps Date: March 18 2006 No: 834 History of the Peace Corps
PCOL is proud to announce that Phase One of the "History of the Peace Corps" is now available online. This installment includes over 5,000 pages of primary source documents from the archives of the Peace Corps including every issue of "Peace Corps News," "Peace Corps Times," "Peace Corps Volunteer," "Action Update," and every annual report of the Peace Corps to Congress since 1961. "Ask Not" is an ongoing project. Read how you can help.


Read the stories and leave your comments.






Some postings on Peace Corps Online are provided to the individual members of this group without permission of the copyright owner for the non-profit purposes of criticism, comment, education, scholarship, and research under the "Fair Use" provisions of U.S. Government copyright laws and they may not be distributed further without permission of the copyright owner. Peace Corps Online does not vouch for the accuracy of the content of the postings, which is the sole responsibility of the copyright holder.

Story Source: Publisher's Weekly

This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; Figures; COS - Uzbekistan; Writing - Uzbekistan

PCOL36165
60


Add a Message


This is a public posting area. Enter your username and password if you have an account. Otherwise, enter your full name as your username and leave the password blank. Your e-mail address is optional.
Username:  
Password:
E-mail: