Farm on Rvr Emrls-V994

I gave this book away so many times that I ended up without a copy of my own, and it is certainly my favorite. Now I'll buy a used copy but wish I still had the copy Moritz autographed for me. He said that if you want to write, you can't be afraid to show yourself naked. He could do that, all right. Totally, brutally honest. If he tells you he spat on the grave of Cortez, you had better believe it. He LOVED these people who drove him nuts, and you feel it over and over. He died as the poor here in Ecuador might die.......of cholera.

Moritz Thomsen's first book, Living Poor, was an account of his experience living in the coastal village of Rioverde, Ecuador during his Peace Corps service. This is an excellent read, on par with Rohinton Mistry's novel, A Fine Balance, in that it is a powerful depiction of poverty. In the Farm on the River Emeralds Thompsen returns to Ecuador to purchase and literally hack a farm out of the jungle with his friend Ramon from Rioverde. The more familiar travel writer Paul Theroux has called Thomsen one of America's best writers. Theroux writes more of the journey and less of the destination. Thomsen is all about the destination. This book places you firmly on the farm near the village of Male, Ecuador. As Thomsen and Ramon struggle to establish the farm, hire workers, and adjust to the community he relates the struggle and the place to you with portrait accuracy of all the characters involved. I have never read an author in my 50+ years that describes the people in his book with such rich, succinct, and novel detail. In reading this book you will know what it is like living in rural Ecuador and will come to know those of the village from the ridiculous,and tragic Dalmiro to successful yet obscessed Ramon. This book is so good that once when I had lost my bookmark upon rereading passages that I had covered I found myself not wanting to skip over them but continued to reread to where I had left off as I savored Thomsen's descriptions, humor, exasperating experiences, and thoughts. [...].