The Consul's Wife

This portrait of a young, single US foreign service officer serving in pre civil-war Lebanon, the Congo, and then just pre-civil war Sudan is dead on in capturing a certain type. Tyler served in the foreign service himself (a milieu I grew up in), and his description of the diplomatic life is perhaps the best I've read. Most of the book is spent in the Congo, and Tyler does an excellent job showing how Hugh Mathews is totally affected by his travels through the back country. He is outsider to the stuffy suited men who mostly stay in within the safe confines of embassy life. His life is given meaning through a frenetic affair with the wife of the embassy's consul. When she leaves, he drifts through a few empty years in Sudan and Washington, going through the motions. He gains a second chance at the end, with plausibly subdued results. It all rings very very true and is presented in well-crafted prose.

Tyler obviously spent time as a Foreign Service Officer. Having spent several years in Africa in the FS as well, this book brought back many memories and yearnings to return. Once Africa gets under your skin, there is an indescibable yearning to return. I was particularly captured in the first two pages of the book with his description of the storm and the magic. I could almost hear the Wood Dove in the background and the crack of lightening against the granite kopjes. From an old AF hand, an excellent read, written by someone who really experienced it and understood.