The White Mary
A Novel
-
-
4.3 • 12 Ratings
-
-
- $11.99
-
- $11.99
Publisher Description
A young woman journeys deep into the untamed jungle, wrestling with love and loss, trauma and healing, faith and redemption, in this sweeping debut from "the gutsiest woman adventurer of our day" (Book Magazine)
Marika Vecera, an accomplished war reporter, has dedicated her life to helping the world's oppressed and forgotten. When not on one of her dangerous assignments, she lives in Boston, exploring a new relationship with Seb, a psychologist who offers her glimpses of a better world.
Returning from a harrowing assignment in the Congo where she was kidnapped by rebel soldiers, Marika learns that a man she has always admired from afar, Pulitzer-winning war correspondent Robert Lewis, has committed suicide. Stunned, she abandons her magazine work to write Lewis's biography, settling down with Seb as their intimacy grows. But when Marika finds a curious letter from a missionary claiming to have seen Lewis in the remote jungle of Papua New Guinea, she has to wonder, What if Lewis isn't dead?
Marika soon leaves Seb to embark on her ultimate journey in one of the world's most exotic and unknown lands. Through her eyes we experience the harsh realities of jungle travel, embrace the mythology of native tribes, and receive the special wisdom of Tobo, a witch doctor and sage, as we follow her extraordinary quest to learn the truth about Lewis—and about herself, along the way.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A young reporter embarks on a dangerous adventure in Salak's gripping debut novel, a blend of Heart of Darkness and Tomb Raider. Like her protagonist, Marika Vecera, award-winning journalist Salak has traveled solo and narrowly escaped death in the world's most remote and terrifying places, including war-torn Congo and the interior of Papua New Guinea. Marika, an ambitious journalist, travels to discover the truth about war correspondent Robert Lewis, who has observed some of the modern world's greatest atrocities. He is believed to have committed suicide, but a letter from a missionary leaves Marika thinking he may still be alive in the wilds of Papua New Guinea. She sets off on her quest, and eventually malaria, ritual murder and arduous trekking through the wilderness lead Marika to some startling discoveries and a pathway out of her own past trauma. While the book can be harrowing (the graphic descriptions of torture are sobering and hard to put out of mind), it offers Marika a redemptive optimism in the face of the worst humanity has to offer.
Customer Reviews
The White Mary
This is a compelling read. Some of the sex and violence seem gratuitous, but by the end make sense. I also am not sure why it is important for the heroine to be beautiful, but the story is an original premise and the theme of seeing both the beauty of the world and the horror of it is Oneida find myself returning to in prose, poetry, and fiction so this was a good find.
Amazing!
I loved this book so much I read it in one day and then went out and purchased her two additional biographical works. The way she brings you right into the story is extraordinary. I felt as though I was right there with her, trudging through the hot sticky jungle. There is not really a romantic storyline to this book, but I was more than captivated by the adventure shebtakes. At times the book did get graphic, but it only added to the emotion interjected throughout the story. This was Salak's first venture into the land of fiction, and it left me aching for more.