Foreign Correspondence

A Pen Pal's Journey from Down Under to All Over

As a young girl in a working-class neighborhood of Sydney, Australia, Geraldine Brooks longed to discover the places where history happens and culture comes from, so she enlisted pen pals who offered her a window on adolescence in the Middle East, Europe, and America. Twenty years later Brooks, an award-winning foreign correspondent, embarked on a human treasure hunt to find her pen friends. She found men and women whose lives had been shaped by war and hatred, by fame and notoriety, and by the ravages of mental illness. Intimate, moving, and often humorous, Foreign Correspondence speaks to the unquiet heart of every girl who has ever yearned to become a woman of the world.

Enjoyed

What an interesting book 😊I so enjoyed the voices ! It brought the book to life
Thank you

The similarities in Australian and USA society.

Love the epistolary connection and historical part. Did not care to read the same social Justice inserts.

I loved the courage and love of truly good family life.

I enjoyed the g story and the presentation of this remarkable life and her peaceful acceptance of each stage. Ms. Brooks, in everything I have read has offered so much pleasure and insight in her beautiful prose.

Beautiful. Simple.

I love that she read her own story and how the title wasn’t at all what I thought it meant. The book is thoroughly enjoyable. It wasn’t complicated and told a wonderful story of childhood, yearning for adventure and didn’t sugar coat her beginnings. It’s amazing how her childhood wanderlust shaped her life.

Too Wordy

I like the premise of this story. A little one befriends acquaintances and begins several pen pal correspondences.
Each of these expanded her world, enriched her sphere and molded her character. What I did not enjoy were the voluminous rambles about depression and eating disorders. I was even confused, for a bit, as to which person format had the eating disorder. The pen pal? the narrator? or both? This dribbly dialogue seemed never ending.
What I did enjoy was the circle back to catch up with the pen pals decades later.