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Type of bind: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.6
EAN num: 9780805088472
ISBN number: 0805088474
Label: Henry Holt and Co.
Manufacturer: Henry Holt and Co.
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 368
Printing Date: August 05, 2008
Publishing house: Henry Holt and Co.
Release Date: August 05, 2008
Sale Popularity Level: 79481
Studio: Henry Holt and Co.
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Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product 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.
User popularity level:
Rated by buyers 
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White Mary tells the story of a journalist, Marika Vecera, who is drawn to the world's most dangerous places. Seb, psychology doctoral student, manages to break past Marika's emotional reserve to begin a relationship. But when a reporter who she admires and who she thought dead is said to have resurfaced in Papa New Guinea, she drops everything to go there and find him.
I have a lot of respect for author Kira Salak as a world-class adventurer and I'm a big fan of her non-fiction writing. So I really thought I'd like this book.
One aspect I really did like was her sensuous and vivid description of place. I was right there in the jungle with her protagonist Marika as she slogged through neck-high water, pulling leeches off her bloody skin. Her descriptions of the Congo were equally disturbing and vivid.
I got about a third of the way through the book before I decided not to continue further. One, I wasn't taken with the character's quest - to find a famous reporter she idolizes out in the Papa New Guinean outback. It just didn't feel compelling enough to me to make me know whether or not she succeeds. Secondly, while I admire Salak for her use of a strong, no-nonsense female lead character, this character was so emotionally detached that I had trouble maintaining interest in what happened to her. Finally, there is a lot of violence in the book which I found disturbing, especially on the nights I read it before bed (not recommended).
While this book didn't work for me, I'll continue to read Salak's excellent non-fiction.
Rated by buyers -
this book was okay. wasn't in love with it. i gave it to my daughter who is 26 after i read it and she liked it.
Rated by buyers 
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By the time you finish this book you will be grateful for every appliance in your home. You will discover a new love for your toaster and your water faucets. Kira Salak takes us places we can't even imagine in our wildest mental travelogues. Her previous non-fiction accounts of her adventures in Africa and New Guinea continue in this novel as she takes us into the world of journalist Marika Vecera, a woman obsessed with finding Robert Lewis, her unwitting mentor and inspirational role-model. Marika, who is so like Salak herself that it's impossible not to think that this story is autobiobraphy served up as fiction. Once again Salak, in the person of Marika Vecera, finds herself in the dangerous, exotic jungles of Papua New Guinea. Once again her jouney is both external, as she sloshes through the jungles to find Lewis, and internal, as she discovers what drives her to endure such danger and hardship. There is light at the end of this tunnel but getting there is the thing that Salak does best. I hear she's off to Mongolia subsequent and I have my Yak-skin bookmark ready.
Rated by buyers -
`The White Mary' by Kira Salak is what one might choose to describe as a `journey to Hell' in search of your kindred spirit, similar to Dante's poetic voyage to find his beloved, departed Beatrice. Only in this case it's a woman named Marita Vecera (aka: White Mary) in search of her hero and potential love interest Robert Lewis and instead of having the incomparable Virgil as her guide it's Tobo, a formidable local witch doctor. There is also a change in location in this modern day rendering of Dane's heroic and mythic journey dating from the Middle Ages. Marita finds herself not traversing the three realms of the afterlife but enduring the sweltering heat of the dense jungles in Papua, New Guinea and all the trials and perils that go with the region.
It was within this classic, epic framework that I immediately found myself placing Kira Salak's fictional novel and I can't help but think that it was the author's intention that the reader would do just as I did. Being a noted journalist and vastly experience world travel Kira Salak definitely possesses an astute eye for detail and description of the flora and fauna of the area in which this fictional novel unfolds. However from my perspective it was the internal processes of this female adventurer and seeker that held my focus and interest. While the dangers surrounding her in the "real" world were varied and many White Mary must also confront the psychological and spiritual forces from within; why is she there, what does she hope to achieve and the always present who am I? All too often we discover it's necessary to endure hardships, even face death before true happiness and fulfillment can be achieved. Both the outer and inner journey of `The White Mary' will equally fascinate and entertain the discerning reader.
Rated by buyers -
I decided to pick this book solely because the description of the main character reminded me of someone I know. The reason I mention that is because normally, nothing about this book would have enticed me to pick it up, it's not a topic or genre I generally just choose at whim to read--therefore, not a genre or type of book I'd like at-face.
Much my surprise then, when I plowed through this book in two days. Riveting is the best description I can find. The story follows Marika, a 30-ish magazine journalist who enters some of the most dangerous war zones in the world to write freelance stories. Her hero is Robert Lewis, another war zone journalist who supposedly commits suicide in Malaysia two years after the death of his son. In deciding to write his biography, Marika hears a rumour that Lewis faked his death and is alive in a remote village in Papua New Guinea. A good portion of the book follows her travels through the unrelenting jungle to find Lewis.
The jungle scenes are some of the most uncomfortable and, frankly, terrifying chapters of a book I have ever read. I read a decent amount of horror fiction, but this book doesn't need any supernatural element to terrify. All it needs to do is take you away from everyone you ever knew, throw you in the middle of an uncaring jungle with no way out and no one coming to help you. Add in unrelenting mosquitoes, criminal locals, tropical diseases and staggering heat, and you have a fine recipe for terror. It's amazing to me that people actually live in this place.
Marika is an arresting protagonist. She's not always likeable, and the crux of the story is really about her journey to discover how to be a happy, healthy person capable of liking herself (meaning that during most of the book, she's miserable and emotionally cut off), but she is always fascinating. Occasionally her conversations with her "boyfriend" Seb go on a little too long and drag into the dramatic, but those are small punctuations to the overall story. I highly recommend this book, and not just for those who enjoy travel writing (the previous work of the author).
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