Moving to a South Pacific island from small town Oklahoma, sixteen year old Nancy Sanders trades cruising Main Street in search of tater tots for strolling sandy shores with islanders who feast on sea worms and summon sharks with song. With a dash of teenage sass, MANGO RASH chronicles Nancy’s search for adventure—and identity—in two alien realms: the tricky terrain of adolescence and the remote … adolescence and the remote U.S. territory of American Samoa. Against a backdrop of lava-rimmed beaches, frangipani-laced air, and sensual music, Nancy immerses herself in 1960s island culture with a colorful cast of Samoan and American expat kids.
But life is not one big beach party, Nancy soon finds, when she clashes with her parents over forbidden boys and discovers double standards in the expat community. Samoa, too, is experiencing growing pains as ancient customs collide with 20th-century ways. In the midst of all this, a hurricane shatters the peaceful paradise, delivering lessons in attachment and loss, strength and survival.
Like Nancy, readers of this unforgettable memoir will fall in love with Samoa’s biscuit-tin drum serenades, its mountains like mounds of cut velvet cushions, and its open-hearted people, who face adversity with grace. And just as Nancy does when her own health crisis thrusts her into a very different kind of unfamiliar territory, readers will draw strength from fa’a Samoa: the Samoan Way.
In language as lush as the island landscape, MANGO RASH enchants, entertains, and, ultimately, inspires with its message about embracing and learning from other cultures.
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When I finished this book last night, I wrapped my arms around it and just sat with it for maybe 10 minutes or so. I couldn’t hug the author, so the best I could do was to hug the book, and I didn’t want to let it go. I felt sad it was over.
This story takes us to the 1960s as we join Nan at 16 when she moves with her family to American Samoa for a two year stint her father has signed up for as a doctor. Along with Nan, we learn the in’s and out’s of life in Samoa at that time, experience her teenage angst, and meet wonderful new friends in her discovery of their culture. We watch her change from the awkward outsider to the comfortable island ambassador, and see the conflict she experiences as she is torn between her love of her new island home and her American home. She builds a world we inhabit along with her as she takes us through her journey of transformation. You will want to buy a plane ticket there when you have finished, hopefully with Nan as your tour guide.
Wow, a wonderful memoir, and I highly recommend it.
Well; what do you read after this? What do you follow it with? It was such a great memoir, and I know it will be such a memorable one.
The author lived in American Samoa for less than a year-so it must have made a big impact on her to write a book about it. And it intrigued me: She had been eager to go, and enjoyed the experience………..so why had she only spent a total of eleven months there?
This is not your usual retirement/change of scenery/moving abroad memoir: Nancy went to live in Samoa as an adolescent, and she is writing about events that happened more than fifty years ago. I knew I was going to love it early on-as soon as she mentioned letters, diaries and photos-I really like when authors use all these to write their memories down. A beautiful opening as she’s looking through a photo album of her time in Samoa.
Nancy and her mum and dad moved six thousand miles from their home in the USA as her dad would be working as an Obstetrician and Gynaecologist there. Would it be the paradise she thought it would be? I’ve read many travel and moving abroad memoirs-this is a totally fresh destination. I have to admit, starting this book, I didn’t exactly know where American Samoa was. It was easy to read, I was straight in it, all very interesting, beautifully descriptive, and well observed.
I have a queue of so many books. Not in any particular order really. But there was just something about this one, and I had to read it next! I liked how some song lyric extracts are in here (eg. Happy Talk from on South Pacific, I got You Babe by Sonny and Cher), as well as a few musical terms, to help create the mood, and enhance. Being a musician, this is something that really adds to it for me.
It was a wonderful read, and it brought back a few memories: When I was a child, a relative worked in Fiji a few years and his dad used to put us a slide show on of their pictures there. They brought back grass skirts and necklaces made out of shells and (I think) tamarind seeds for me and my sister.
This memoir had everything: Travel, moving abroad, medical, scary times, unexpected events-even a bit of music. What’s not to like? A fabulous memoir. a