BOOKReviews
Foreign Service Family by Rita and Eric Youngquist 317 pp, 2007 Voyageurpaperback.
Books about those in the Foreign Service are of several kinds: if they played an important role, by biographers who obtained their information by research and interviews; by the officers themselves after they retired, careful not to breach national security; by their wives focusing on the difficulties of making a home abroad, with observations about the nature of the people they live amongst on each posting.
Foreign Service Family is yet another kind. It is based on letters written by the wife of a young American consular officer with whom she stayed during his 1955-1957 Thailand posting. Rita omits no detail in describing their two (then three) tykes. In alternate paragraphs Eric Youngquist does much the same, with accolades to his spouse. About himself and his work, superficial comments. Though you may think that like William Warren and Steve Van Beek this work of non-fiction offers a close look into the Kingdom a half-century ago, it does nothing of the sort.
Yes, Bangkok was criss-crossed by klongs, everything was cheap, the hill tribes grew opium, Bang Saen and Hua Hin were the beaches of note. And? But there is no And.
There are pages of photos, taken from the family scrapbook. Rita passed away in 1993. Eric, now 80, appears to have had this book published as a paean to her memory. Doubtless she was a doting mother and loving wife. Belles-lettres is a form of literature of nicely expressed feelings. Not this. She doubtless had a sense of humour, but it isn't conveyed here. None of the FSO wives will get a Pulitzer Prize for their books on dinners they've thrown, parties attended, pregnancy, teaching school, illness.
Eric doesn't say how high he rose in his career before he retired. This book ends on the note that their next posting was Finland, suggesting that more volumes will follow. If they do, this reviewer trusts that they'll be more substantial than the further adventures of Eric and Rita. And if the family scrapbook is again drawn on for pictures, please keep in mind that photo-filled pages aren't customarily numbered.
The death of US Ambassador Peurifoy in a road accident in Bangkok may be common knowledge in the State Department, yet many people here are unaware of it. More such tidbits, without giving away any secrets, would be a boon to the author's books.
After so many years in the diplomatic corps, let's get the benefit of his experience. FYI. "In order to grow opium poppies, the farmer must fell all the trees and then burn off the remaining cover vegetation completely so the soil is totally denuded. Once the poppies are planted, the farmer cannot allow any weeds to grow."
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