Destination: Somalia, Africa
Book: A House In the Sky by Amanda Lindhout and Sara Corbett
When I was asked to review this book, I said no thanks. After all, a book about a woman captured and held by rebels in Somalia is not exactly the best book to inspire travel. Is it? When the publicist mailed me the book anyhow, I set it aside while I reviewed books that better fit A Traveler’s Library criteria. Finally, I read A House in the Sky
Time to confess. I was wrong. In fact, if you read my list of Best Books of 2014, you saw A House in the Sky at the top of that list.
This beautifully crafted memoir, despite its unnerving and repellant parts, is a good book to inspire people to travel and experience the world.
The outline– journalist held hostage in Somalia for 460 days in 2008–definitely does not tell the whole story. Amanda Lindhout, who grew up in Alberta, Canadian always longed to be “out in the world.” In her twenties, she became a traveler and journalist who experienced this harrowing experience. Her co-writer Sara Corbett joined her in telling the story by presenting to us in a deceptively casual tone a deeply moving and inspiring and sometimes even humorous story.
Why would someone even BE in the most dangerous country on earth by choice? Isn’t that just asking for trouble? We learn enough of LIndout’s backstory to see her insatiable love of the discoveries made when traveling. We see how her passion for getting beneath the surface of a culture leads her to more and more “forbidden” places.
Then she convinces an ex-boyfriend to go to Somalia with her to cover one more war. In retrospect, she can see she was naive and unprepared. Just as she is honest and unsparing in looking at her own actions leading up to that decision, she dredges up and relives for her co-writer and her readers all the uncomfortable, devastating, horrific days of being a prisoner.
The writers depict the situation with such sharp reality that we experience something totally outside our own experience. The reader comes away feeling that they know exactly what it is like to be held in captivity in one run-down house after another by a gang of mostly adolescent boys. Of course we do not know. Not really.
But that is the art of the writing in A House in the Sky. Without glossing over the horrors, the authors present the day to day despair of the captives with enough selectivity that we think we know what they went through.
Amanda Lindhout was resourceful in captivity and never allows the captors to change who she is. Even after all this, more than a year of not knowing what the next day would hold, until privately raised funds ransom her and her fellow captive, she continues to travel.
Instead of shunning the country that was the site of her most horrendous experience, she has established an education fund for Somalia youth, Global Enrichment Foundation. She returned to Nova Scotia to study international development. Instead of focusing on the young men who tormented her, she says:
My course of study was chosen in service to another vow, one made from the depths of the Dark House–that somehow I’d find a way to honor the woman who charged into the mosque to help me after Nigel and I tried to escape, who literally threw her body over mine and fought until I was dragged out of her arms.
When I think about Somalia, I think about her.
In this interview,filmed in October 2013, Lindhout explains why she still travels, including to Somalia. Lindhout says “Travel has always been a vital part of myself…the world is at its essence a good place.” The excellent interview is 19 minutes long, but you may want to set aside time. (And it does not spoil your experience of the book.”
Note: The publisher provided the book for review, but this never influences my sharing my honest opinion with you.
I have included links to Amazon.com because it makes it easy for you to purchase the book. You need to know that although it costs you no more, I will make a few cents with every purchase through Amazon links on this site. THANKS!
Vera I find this book and your review fascinating. Many of us world travelers have the “I need to see new lands” gene and a select few have the “I need to see all lands” gene. I for one have the former gene 😉 But I appreciate Amanda’s take too that the world is largely a good place. I’d even say the world is a largely safe place because even in war zones the number of civilian deaths is really low compared to the contractors and adventurous travelers who are making their way through.
Really neat stuff Vera. Thanks so much for sharing 🙂
Ryan
Sounds like a good one – but I am glad you reviewed it as the subject matter would otherwise have fallen into the category of plane crashes, ships sinking and other travel maladies I’d rather not think about. On a side note, I tried to find a book review you had done a few weeks/months ago and couldn’t find a link that said, previous posts or book reviews. How do I go back on your site? (And I can’t think of anything to describe the book other than I thought it sounded good at the time).
Jackie: To go back the slow way, just scroll down to the bottom of the page and then follow the arrow to “Older Posts”. If it is an older post that will take a while. One way to slightly narrow it down is to go to the “Where Do You Want to Go?” box in the right hand column. That will give you all the categories. You can click on books, and all book reviews will show up on the left. If you remember genre, that will narrow it down further. Books is a huge category, but at least it eliminates announcements and my strictly travel pieces. Hope that helps you find what you are looking for.