The White Mary: Summary and book reviews of The White Mary by Kira Salak, plus links to an excerpt from The White Mary and a biography of Kira Salak.

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.

BookBrowse

Salak makes some stylistic decisions that initially come across as awkward, choosing to differentiate the PNG scenes from those occurring elsewhere by a change in tense .... Fortunately, the plot is so involving that the reader is willing to overlook the book's weaknesses. The White Mary is a great adventure story, and is certainly a page-turner. but it will not be for everyone. People who are bothered by graphic descriptions of brutality should probably give this novel a pass. Most fans of the genre, however, will want to put this one on their list.  (Reviewed by Kim Kovacs).

Full Review (1205 words).

Media Reviews

Kirkus Reviews A vivid journey too often slowed by tedious flashbacks...if only Marika's internal demons were as interesting as the external ones Tobo teaches her to surmount.   Library Journal The prose is sometimes a bit pulpy, but the story is undeniably involving. The prose is sometimes a bit pulpy, but the story is undeniably involving as Marika .... A good addition for all fiction collections.   Publishers Weekly Gripping…a blend of Heart of Darkness and Tomb Raider. While the book can be harrowing...it offers Marika a redemptive optimism in the face of the worst humanity has to offer. Pick of the Week. Sebastian Junger One cannot write well about people risking their lives without having done it oneself; suffice it to say that Kira Salak is profoundly convincing on the topic. Salak's got it: That ability to capture the world in all its beauty and darkness and violence without romanticizing it. This is a book borne of the years that Salak spent as a journalist and traveler in some of the most terrifying places in the world, but she has held on to her basic humanity through it all. That essential humanity is what elevates The White Mary—and all of Salak's work—from mere 'adventure writing' to true literature. The reader is changed by it—changed in the same way Salak must have been, many times over, in the writing of it. This is a truly inspiring book about the kind of place I have spent many years reporting from. There is no doubt: She nailed it. Philip Caputo With The White Mary, journalist Kira Salak makes a stunning debut as a novelist. This is a story whose beauty and power sweeps you along, like the jungle rivers that bear her heroine into the heart of New Guinea in search of a vanished American. In the tradition of Joseph Conrad's Lord Jim and Graham Greene's The Heart of the Matter, The White Mary is a superb adventure tale that explores the human soul, a tale of a physical journey that frames a spiritual quest for love and meaning in a world sadly deficient in both.

Recent Reader Reviews

Rated of 5 by Cherylynn
The White Mary
This book kept me on the edge and I did not want to put it down. It is hard to find a book that gets under my skin but this one did that. I never knew what was going to happen next and in no way could guess. That to me is a good book.

Rated of 5 by Jake
An amazing, powerful, riveting book
The characters, scenes, events and descriptions of this book are so real that I found myself almost living Marika's life and experiencing her trials, tribulations, and successes in her amazing journey from traumatic events to a spiritual awakening....   Read More

Rated of 5 by Erika
The White Mary
In Salak's dugout canoe take an inhospitable adventure into the jungles of Papua New Guinea in search of a man believed dead. But is he? Beautiful, hypnotic, mesmerizing, intoxicating. Raw in nature while elegant in spirit. Simple yet deeply...   Read More

Rated of 5 by Laura
The White Mary
A harrowing adventure story at it’s core, The White Marycenters around Marika Vecera, a war correspondent always seeking out the world’s most dangerous situations because of a life-long commitment to tell the story of victims of war and...   Read More

Rated of 5 by Roberta
Depressing
The author may be an accomplished writer, but the affectations used as writing style nearly prevented me from completing this book. The subject as a whole is quite depressing and the author pushes through her condescending attitude that we "lambs"...   Read More

Rated of 5 by Suzanne
One Woman's Heart of Darkness
How much sorrow and intentional pain can we witness without losing our souls? It's a highly personal question that award-winning journalist Kira Salak explores in her first novel, The White Mary. Knowing that Salak has herself spent much...   Read More

...13 More Reader Reviews

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