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
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:
Peace Corps Online The Independent News Forum serving Returned Peace Corps Volunteers
| 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. |
| 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 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. |
| 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 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% 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 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