Book Review: Ninety Dozen Glasses by Marguerite Cullman

Back in 1958, near the peak of America's golden years, President Eisenhower appointed Marguerite Cullman's husband to be the US Commissioner General to the Brussels World Exhibition. Her charming memoir, published January 1960, has long been one of my favorites -- the sort of old, beloved book you dig out to read on a rainy day every few years.

I suppose it's partly because this is the sort of book you expect when you imagine diplomatic wife memoirs. Lots and lots of cocktail parties, much being made over who sits precisely where at all official functions, dealing with the servants (should one find a drunken butler amusing, or fire him?), house hunting with a fat budget and perfect taste in a European capital city, and unexpected friendships with one's diplomatic peers from all sorts of exotic countries.

One of the most memorable parts of the book is Cullman's description of what each nation chose to display to symbolize the power and might of their culture. The Russians put a giant piece of agricultural equipment on display. The US put a big fat copy of that week's Sunday New York Times.

BTW: The ninety dozen glasses of the title refer to the massive cabinet of cocktail glasses of every size and description that were a requirement for the job. Too bad I never had a job like that!

Book Review: Our Man in Belize by Richard Timothy Conroy

When I heard Belize got hit by a 7.1 earthquake yesterday morning, my thoughts immediately turned to this classic diplomatic memoir. Back in the fall of 1961, when Belize was still British Honduras and its biggest city had a population of 30,000, Hurricane Hattie hit causing massive devastation. 400 buildings were wiped out, along all utilities, roads, and the town's supply of drinking water (Conroy's description of dealing with would-be rescuers a few days later when he'd had no sleep since Hattie and nothing safe to drink but alcohol is marvelous.)

Although it's now touted as a green tourism destination, back in 1961, Belize was a butthole pure and simple. It was one of those diplomatic postings you got when you seriously pissed off the wrong person at State Department.

In the decades since his tour as Belize's US Vice Consul, Conroy, self-admittedly, honed his stories until they "took on a life of their own". And boy are they good. Reading this book, you completely understand why St Martin's editor Ruth Cavin, laughing like crazy, paid for Conroy's lunch at DC's Hotel Madison (not a cheap place), and then begged him to write it all down. I'm awfully glad he listened to her.

You'll enjoy this book if:
- You love dry humor, especially targeted at the State Department
- You're a hurricane story buff
- You're considering moving to Belize, now a much-hawked retirement and 2nd home destination for Americans, and would like a reality check on what it was like before the current developers moved in.

Book Review: Married to the Foreign Service by Jewell Fenzi & Carl Nelson

Based on 170 oral interviews with US foreign service spouses (nearly all women), this history book is packed with behind-the-scenes details of what diplomatic life was really like from the 1920s to the 1990s.

It's not at all dry -- I was completely engrossed by the personal stories and lengthy quotes which cover everything from being evacuated from Tehran; being stationed in Moscow during the height of the Cold War; surviving coup attempts in Baghdad; coping with the McCarthy hearings; and swimming the Bosporus. Not to mention a few cocktail parties along the way.

Interwoven with these stories, you'll find a history of the role of diplomatic spouse, from an unpaid helpmeet with little or no official training to the upheavals of the women's movement (1972 was the year "they fired the wives") to the end of the century when some spouses were male. Also included, an examination of what it means to be a foreign-born spouse representing your new country when you've barely lived there yourself. (More common than you might think.)

You'll like this book if you:
- enjoy tales of diplomatic adventures from a female perspective.
- are considering a foreign service career yourself (or your spouse is.)
- study women's history.

Book Review: Hidden Immigrants, Legacies of Growing Up Abroad, by Linda Bell

When I lived in Northwest Washington DC in my 20s, it was still a fairly sleepy little town with used car dealers and strip clubs within a few blocks of the White House. Aside from a few friends who worked for the government, it seemed everyone else my age was foreign, either a recent immigrant from one of 100 different countries, or a foreign journalist, a World Bank minion, an Iranian refugee, or an embassy staffer. In fact so many people in my neighborhood were foreign that you were assumed foreign until proven otherwise. I was myself often mistaken by fellow Americans for a Swede, and complimented on my well-spoken English!

That foreignness, that international flavor, attracted another demographic like crazy -- foreign service brats. Now young adults who had been brought up around the world by parents in the diplomatic service or other international careers. I remember one boyfriend who kept exclaiming because all the city signs were in English and it was so "incredibly" convenient. He'd never lived anywhere the English language was public before. Like him, many of my friends had lived everywhere as children ... except America itself. Suddenly they found themselves at 21 or 22, ejected from school and family, starting a new life in a strange country.

Now, as a stepmother to two young adults who grew up in two different countries before immigrating to America, I again see that "Which country is mine? Where do I fit?" played out around me.

So, I was happy to find Linda Bell's book, 'Hidden Immigrants' because she helped explain that no-man's-land of adjustment when you've spent much of your life in one country and then move back to your "native" land. Much of the material is direct transcription highlights of oral histories given by 13 real-life 'hidden immigrants' about their adjustment to life back in the home country.

Most fascinating are the conclusions about life patterns that Bell draws from her research. It seems people who grew up outside of their home country, especially those who moved several times, often exhibit very similar patterns, pains and problems. And yet, the stories they told of their childhood, the worlds they lived in... you can't help but be a little jealous.

Book Review: Moscow Spring by William and Jane Taubman

In the best tradition of academics, the Taubmans eschewed the expat ghetto in Moscow when they lived there in the late 1980s. Instead, they were the only non-Russians in their apartment building and possibly entire neighborhood, just as Gorbachev's reforms kicked in.

In this memoir, written as events were happening and published in 1989, the Taubmans recount their Russian friends and neighbors' daily life and passionate feelings about a future with the cold war ended and capitalism blooming.

You'll find this book this book fascinating if you:

- want insight into the formative early adult experiences that shaped the (mostly) men who are the generation in power in Russia today.

- are interested in studying societies at their moments of earth-shattering transition (not to mention economic upset.)

- consider "may you live in interesting times" a blessing you'd like to be gifted with.

Book Review: Dome of Many-Coloured Glass by Post Wheeler & Hallie Erminie Rives

In years past, the best used book sale in Washington DC was run by a non-profit arm of the State Department. All the foreign service personnel and spouses would donate books - it was so huge they had to rent the biggest hall in town. If you've lived overseas you can understand why. Books in English are better than Godiva chocolates, so you collect an awful lot of them.

Foreign service officers and their spouses tend to live more exciting lives than most of us and then write books about themselves, which they all in turn collect, and then, when they get old, donate to the booksale. So there's that too.

At my very first Foreign Service booksale, so many years ago that I was in my 20s and living in a one-bedroom apartment within walking distance to the White House, I picked up a copy of 'Dome of Many-Coloured Glass' a diplomatic memoir. I think I liked the heft of the book (860-pages, not including index with tantilizing entries such as 'Anathan, Baroness d' pages 277, 445, 561") as much as I adored the scent of its yellowing pages.

Even in 1955, when it was first published, this autobiography must have been unusual in that husband and wife, both well-published authors, shared the stage. Each one tells the story of a diplomatic posting from their own perspective, the husband who is the diplomatic officer and the wife who must 'pay, pack and follow' as well as create a vibrant social life. Their postings, including Japan, London, The Arctic, Rome, Russia, Paraguay, Sweden and Albania, were extraordinary, and held at extraordinary times in the first half of the 20th century.

This book is no longer in print and second-hand copies are sometimes hard to come by, but you'll find the search is well worth it if you're interested in:

- international relations in the first half of the 20th century.

- what it was like being a diplomatic spouse back when men were diplomats and women were "helpmeets" (and boy did they help!)

- office politics at the US State Department. (Ugly, mean, tough.)

- High society in Japan, Sweden, et al, back when the Wheelers were circulating in it.