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American Taboo
A Murder In The Peace Corps
by Philip Weiss
Philip Weiss unravels the truth about what happened to a young Peace Corps volunteer and her killer in Tonga more than a quarter century ago. Weiss transforms a Polynesian legend into a singular artifact of American history and a profoundly moving human story. [HarperCollins]
HarperCollins, 384 pages
06/01/2004
$25.95
ISBN: 0060096861
Nonfiction
History
All reviews are classified as one of five grades: Outstanding (4 points), Favorable (3), Mixed (2), Unfavorable (1) and Terrible (0). To calculate the Metascore, we divide total points achieved by the total points possible (i.e., 4 x the number of reviews), with the resulting percentage (multiplied by 100) being the Metascore. Learn more...
Publishers Weekly
A gripping and deeply sad story that will do little to bolster faith in the U.S. government's ethical priorities.
Salon Bob Shacochis
A spectacular debut by a writer who must be applauded for his clarity and fairness, the lean elegance of his narrative untainted by cynicism or the indiscretion of agendas.
Booklist Connie Fletcher
This searing portrayal of the government cover-up of the murder of a young female Peace Corps volunteer in 1976 contains more in-depth investigative work than do most true-crime accounts...Gripping reading. [1 June 2004, p.1680]
Village Voice Danial Adkinson
[Weiss] expertly reconstructs conversations that took place nearly 30 years ago, and shares the cherished memories of young idealists whose innocence died with Deb in October 1976.
San Francisco Chronicle Eliza Wilmerding
An important and absorbing story. On the whole, this is a book thick with energy and polished with good journalism and a writer's touch.
The New York Times Book Review Peter Godwin
A fascinating diorama of life in the Peace Corps in the 1970's, on the edge of the world, four flights and 7,000 miles from home.
Washington Post Richard Lipez
Intermittently spellbinding...but it is a third longer than it needs to be, and is unconvincing whenever it tries to transmute its material into a story of American lost innocence.
Chicago Tribune Robin Hemley
My main complaint about the book is that it lacks an index. This book has many characters who enter and exit the stage with dizzying rapidity, and while the main characters are easily distinguished one from the other, it was a blunder for the publisher to forgo something so crucial to a book that deals with the historical record.
The Nation Matt Steinglass
It doesn't quite work. Perhaps this is because Weiss consistently fails in his efforts to impart larger significance to his story.
The New York Times Janet Maslin
The whole book is padded with repetitions, nonevents, paragraphs full of sawdust, marginal details, purplish flights of fancy and not-too-quotable quotes. To the extent that he has happened upon a never-told story of sex, scandal and cover-up, Mr. Weiss has done a remarkable job of sapping the life out of it.
 The average user rating for this book is 0.0 (out of 10) based on 0 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
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