Searching for Everado: A Story of Love, War, and the CIA in Guatemala

This book was recommended to me in 1997 while traveling to Guatemala for the first time. The book is very captivating and interesting, providing not just a love story between the author and Everado, her husband, but inside info about the 36 year civil war in Guatemala that "ended" with a Peace Treaty in 1996. This book is very sad, disturbing, and yet, empowering. Jennifer Harbury stands firm in the face of adversity and intense opposition from the US (CIA) and Guatemalan governments. She pursued justice at all cost, for the sake of the poor in Guatemala and her beloved Everado. Tragic story, yet very enlightening.

Harbury's book is magnificent. It allows readers to glimpse the truth, the agony, behind civil war in Central and South America; and it explores every inch of the tear-stained emotions of the author. It has eyes that see the entire circle of human affairs, exploding into a grisly flow of blood that allows for no escape. The author paints a world of pain and joy, and of irrevocable loss; I cried at its conclusion. The book lodged itself into my soul and has not ever left.

Searching for Everardo is an emotionally moving book that tells the story of not just one man - but an entire race of people during a very violent period for their country. The Kirkus Review condemns the author for not acknowledging that her husband was a commander of the guerilla forces and therefore,they imply, somehow deserving of his capture, torture and death. Harbury clearly recognizes her husband's position in the war throughout the book and the Kirkus Review makes one see how necessary his struggle, the struggle of class and race, has been throughout history. We still have a long way to go in ending racism - the world over.

I have to say, Jennifer Harbury is a inspirational figure to me in this modern world. The strength is must have took to live the life that she did and to rehash it through documentation...amazing. The "Kirkus" review criticizes her for "flowery" language. I just want to say that there's no such thing as an unbiased historical account. Harbury presents the book as a memoir of what she lived through in the search for her HUSBAND, and the truth of his disappearance and death, not as an objective outsiders look at the US and Guatemalan military/government relationships. If her words tend to become laced with emotion, it's because she's human and she's talking about a human relationship.Overall, Harbury doesn't claim to be a literary giant. She is a woman telling her story, from her perspective, as it happened to her. It's a compelling and tragic adventure that inspires us all to be a little more aware, a little more concerned, a little stronger, and a little more determined.

... and was left with a deep gratitude to Jennifer Harbury for so vividly and compellingly giving us Everardo, for so intimately letting us into their intimacies and love, for revealing to us a Guatemala few know, for having the courage to go there, deep into the mountains, and to bring out so vibrantly all these people who live precipitously on the edge in their quest for freedom - and for daring to love so deeply in such a dangerous situation, for holding fast to that love in her search for Everardo. Her speaking to him throughout the book reminds me, the reader, over and over, that this is not simply story, but real life. I found Jennifer's language to be utterly absorbing and her telling of this real life to be striking, commanding. It's a book I can't push away from, it keeps following me around weeks after I've finished reading.