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Interviews | January 3, 2012

Jill Owens: IMG Naomi Benaron: The Powells.com Interview

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Naomi BenaronRunning the Rift is the most recent winner of the PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction, as awarded by Barbara Kingsolver. It's also an... Continue »
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Emergency Sex and Other Desperate Measures: A True Story from Hell on Earth

Emergency Sex and Other Desperate Measures: A True Story from Hell on Earth Cover

ISBN13: 9781401352011
ISBN10: 1401352014
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Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

In this startling celebration of the strength of the human spirit and the gritty power of friendship, three United Nations workers share their true story of fighting for sanity in the face of atrocities, mass graves, desperate loneliness and primal desires.

Review:

"Ah, to be young, Western and ambitious in a war zone. It's the early 1990s, and Cain and Postlewait are two American U.N. employees sent to Cambodia to help the country rebuild itself after two decades of war and genocide. Thomson is a New Zealand — trained doctor who has already been there for a short while, patching up limbs shattered by land mines and looking for a corner of the world to save. The three meet during the U.N.'s efforts to install democracy in one of the unlikeliest places. Idealism, financial need, thirst for adventure and the desire to be a part of history bring them there, and the high they get from doing their work keeps them flitting around the globe, looking for hot spots to help cool down. The trio's early success in Southeast Asia is only added encouragement, as they follow their own intertwining paths through the wars and killings of the 1990s. From Cambodia, Somalia and Haiti, to Bosnia, Rwanda and Liberia, Cain, Postlewait and Thomson find death, sex, bureaucratic betrayal, sex, liberation from their pasts and seamy, regret-tainted sex amid the body parts and rotting flesh. Infuriating, heart-wrenching and well written, their tale is compelling both as a bottom-up look at U.N. peacekeeping efforts during the 1990s and a testimonial from the people who put their lives and sanity on the line for the sake of a simple idea — peace. 16 pages of b&w photos not seen by PW. (June 9) Forecast: This memoir could appeal to under-35 Peace Corps volunteers and other young idealists. The authors will promote the book in New York and Washington, D.C." Publishers Weekly (Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information, Inc.)
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Average customer rating based on 1 comment:
April Dauenhauer, May 17, 2009 (view all comments by April Dauenhauer)
Emergency Sex and Other Desperate Measures (subtitled: A True Story From Hell on Earth) is not a long book, by my standards, but I didn't know if I could finish it. I couldn't put it down, and I couldn't keep on reading. I couldn't pick it up, and I couldn't stop until the end. It took me a week to finish it, but now I think I will never be finished with it.

What do you get if you take a doctor, a lawyer and recently divorced secretary and put them together in the middle of worst atrocities of the late twentieth century? No, that is not the start of a joke, it is how Emergency Sex came to be written by three of the most idealistic, courageous, tenacious, compassionate and brutally honest people I have ever encountered.

Not that they trumpet their virtues, indeed, the opposite. Ironically, in revealing what they perceive as their failings and faults, they reveal more than they know, and only their iron standards keep them from seeing what any reader can perceive - ordinary people in extraordinary situations doing the work of saints and angels while reviling themselves for not achieving better results.

They all worked for the United Nations, and between them, jointly or individually, worked in every hell that the '90's had to offer: Cambodia, Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Rwanda, Liberia - if there was a place on earth where man's cruelty and inhumanity bloomed, the United Nations sent them there, to heal, to guard, to document the atrocities. In the process, they lose friends and companions in the violence, they lose their naivete, they lose their youth, and occasionally come close to losing their minds. But what civilized person could endure what they experienced and remain the same as before? I could not even read about it and remain the same.

Do not read this book if you want to be entertained and not think too deeply about our world today. Do not read this book if you want to keep the opinions you already have formed on the United Nations and the work they do.

The authors shed light on the proximate reasons for Srebrenica and other horror stories, but they leave it to the reader to form their own conclusions about what should have, could have been done instead. Like the stories they tell, my conclusions are layered and nuanced, but one thing I believe - we could not afford isolationism in the time of Wood Wilson, and we cannot afford it now.

We all live together on a small blue marble isolated in the vastness of empty space, and what affects one country affects all of us eventually, whether it is pollution and global warming or poisoning the air and water with ruthless manufacturing, or an arms race that spreads volatile weapons and death throughout the planet.

I like books with happy endings, and the lives of Andrew, Ken and Heidi prove that hope overcomes fear, compassion overcomes hate and truth is more powerful than lies. In this book, that will have to be a happy enough ending for me.

Published in paperback format in 2006, this book will be relevant to the decision-making of President Obama in 2009, as the story never ends, just the scenery changes.
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Product Details

ISBN:
9781401352011
Publisher:
Miramax Books
Subject:
General
Author:
Cain, Kenneth
Author:
Postlewait, Heidi
Author:
Thomson, Andrew
Subject:
Friendship
Subject:
Political
Subject:
Peaceful change (international relations)
Subject:
Personal Memoirs
Subject:
International Relations - General
Subject:
General Biography
Subject:
Biography - General
Edition Description:
Hardcover
Publication Date:
20040631
Binding:
HARDCOVER
Grade Level:
General/trade
Language:
English
Illustrations:
Y
Pages:
320
Dimensions:
9.25 x 6.125 in 21.84 oz
Age Level:
Adult
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Emergency Sex and Other Desperate Measures: A True Story from Hell on Earth
0 stars - 0 reviews
$ In Stock
Product details 320 pages Miramax Books - English 9781401352011 Reviews:
"Publishers Weekly Review" by , "Ah, to be young, Western and ambitious in a war zone. It's the early 1990s, and Cain and Postlewait are two American U.N. employees sent to Cambodia to help the country rebuild itself after two decades of war and genocide. Thomson is a New Zealand — trained doctor who has already been there for a short while, patching up limbs shattered by land mines and looking for a corner of the world to save. The three meet during the U.N.'s efforts to install democracy in one of the unlikeliest places. Idealism, financial need, thirst for adventure and the desire to be a part of history bring them there, and the high they get from doing their work keeps them flitting around the globe, looking for hot spots to help cool down. The trio's early success in Southeast Asia is only added encouragement, as they follow their own intertwining paths through the wars and killings of the 1990s. From Cambodia, Somalia and Haiti, to Bosnia, Rwanda and Liberia, Cain, Postlewait and Thomson find death, sex, bureaucratic betrayal, sex, liberation from their pasts and seamy, regret-tainted sex amid the body parts and rotting flesh. Infuriating, heart-wrenching and well written, their tale is compelling both as a bottom-up look at U.N. peacekeeping efforts during the 1990s and a testimonial from the people who put their lives and sanity on the line for the sake of a simple idea — peace. 16 pages of b&w photos not seen by PW. (June 9) Forecast: This memoir could appeal to under-35 Peace Corps volunteers and other young idealists. The authors will promote the book in New York and Washington, D.C." Publishers Weekly (Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information, Inc.)
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