Never the Hope Itself: Love and Ghosts in Latin America and Haiti

by Gerry Hadden

A former NPR correspondent takes you into his own ghost-filled life as he reports on a region in turmoil. Gerry Hadden was training to become a Buddhist monk when opportunity came the offer of a dream job as NPR’s correspondent for Latin America. Arriving in Mexico in 2000 during the nation’s first democratic transition of power, he witnesses both hope and uncertainty. But after 9/11, he finds himself documenting overlooked yet extraordinary events in a forgotten political landscape. As he reports on Colombia’s drug wars, Guatemala’s deleterious emigration, and Haiti’s bloody rebellion, Hadden must also make a home for himself in Mexico City, coming to terms with its ghosts and chasing down the love of his life, in a riveting narrative that reveals the human heart at the center of international affairs.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Travel, History, Autobiography, Politics

345 pages, Paperback

First published September 6, 2011

About the author

I'm a writer. My novel, Everything Turns Invisible, comes out June 15th, 2021. It's available for pre-order as a paperback or ebook anywhere, online or in stores.

An earlier version was published by Piper Verlag, in Munich, in October, 2017. In German. Stay tuned for updates on the Spanish and French editions.

For food, I work as a documentary filmmaker on a program called Big Story. Before that I was a foreign correspondent in radio, with PRI's The World and NPR.

My memoir from my NPR years, Never the Hope Itself: Love and Ghosts in Latin America and Haiti, was published in 2011 by HarperPerennial. http://amzn.to/2cnYIOr

We live on a mountainside above Barcelona, where my partner and I raise our three kids and fall asleep to the snuffling of wild boar beyond our wall.

Reviews

[Barbara Skuplik · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. So often South America has been neglected in the news/media, often overshadowed by the plight and atrocities happening in the Middle East, Balkans, and Africa. Gerry Hadden writes a beautiful, raw, honest, and unbiased recollection of his time covering the elections in Haiti, his time in Mexico, and reporting for NPR all over Latin America. I appreciate the honestly with which he wrote this book, and the detail with which he described certain life events, his thoughts and feelings, and some of the characters. Once I got into the book, I really had a hard time wanting to put it down. I hope he writes many more books in the future. I appreciate the pictures (although not enough!) he added as an insert in the middle of the book. I wish he had included more! I highly recommend this book.

[Isaac Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book because I wanted some sort of background in the geo political background of Central and Latin America. In that regard, this book is fantastic! Gripping and detailed. However, although I enjoyed the side stories of his interactions with the ghosts in his apartment, it did not convince me to abandon my long held denial of the paranormal ;)

[Noa]

Full disclosure, I have met Gerry a few times and like him as a person so maybe I am biased but I have to say even some of my best friends have written books that I just cannot muster up the enthusiasm to endorse and I can confidently endorse this book. When bedtime was nearing after long days I would perk up and think, oh! I get to keep reading that exciting book Gerry wrote about his crazy times in Mexico and Haiti. And every night it delivered. I loved how he interspersed his personal stories about friendships and life and ghosts and the semi itinerant charmed life as an NPR reporter with facts about the political backdrop that we so easily forget. Aristide? Vicente Fox? I knew those names once but they were deleted or sent to some random filing box in my brain. I was delighted that they were resurrected through Gerry's visceral accounts of being on the ground in complicated terrain. The disappointment of Colin Powell's no show, 9-11 from the Mexican perspective, a view from the night train that maims immigrants. I easily forgave his few missteps in chatty discourse because the book kept giving me good story. It was a page turner even for me who seems to have been reprogrammed by my devices to have no attention span. Thank you for writing this book!

[Dionisia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Note: I won a copy of this book from the Goodreads First Reads giveaway program.

Writing about what I read would probably be easier if I paused every once in a while to take proper notes. I stubbornly continue to neglect to tear my self away from a good book because I don't like to be pulled out of the story. I would rather bury myself in it. The characters. A sense of time. A sense of place. Gerry Hadden succeeded in making his experiences come alive on the page. Great for me. Bad for you because this "review" will suck.

I don't spend a lot of time reading memoirs but it was interesting to get a behind-the-scenes look at what life was like working as NPR's foreign correspondent in Latin America and Haiti. Rootless. Stressful. Dangerous. Thrilling. I was less interested in his budding love life and his encounters with ghosts in Mexico City.

[Carolina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Having grown up in Mexico City, I was excited to find a book that so perfectly grasped the culture and struggles faced by the country while showing the beauty as well. Immediately I was hooked as the book struck the careful balance of being informational while including personal anecdotes that gave insight into the struggles faced by an NPR correspondent. This dream, over-the-top life is so easy to connect with and understand with the vivid descriptions of Hadden's many journeys. I would recommend this to someone looking for insight to the life of a reporter, interested in Latin American dynamics, or anyone searching for a grasping story that goes far and beyond hard-cold journalism but gives you the story behind the reporter as well.

[Erika · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. Easy to read, totally real, infinitely interesting. As I got closer to the end, I began to wonder how this book could end, because it felt like it needed to be written to infinity, literally. But! When I got to the end, it really made sense, so even though I was disappointed it had to end, I got it... This won't make sense maybe? But read it!

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty astonishing story, packed with vivid scenes of my pal Gerry's days covering Haiti and Latin America for NPR. He writes like the skilled fiction writer he is and pushes you down into a world that's by turns bewildering, horrifying, laugh-out-loud funny, romantic, and achingly sad. Terrific stuff.

[The Tick · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was actually quite readable, but it was just so unfocused (see: the 50 million tags I gave it). I never quite knew what I was going to get with every new chapter, and I found that frustrating more than anything else.

[George Wolfe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Never the Hope Itself provides a gripping personal account of a roughly 4-year period beginning just before 9/11, during which the author served as the main (i.e., sole) NPR correspondent for Latin America and parts of the Caribbean, including Haiti.

While the overlapping stories of historic and tumultuous events in this wide swath of countries would be interesting enough in their own right, what makes the memoir unique are the personal tales, humorous anecdotes and particular character vulnerabilities that Hadden weaves into his account.

From inexplicable supernatural happenings inside his Mexico City apartment / “news bureau” to his serendipitous love affair, Hadden unfurls a story that is hyper-realistic and gritty, as he follows dangerous immigration routes to the U.S., or tracks the ebb and flow of precarious life in Haiti, etc. On the other hand, however, he tells a tale that is full of flair, whimsy, poetry and magic.

The book is published by Harper Perennial and is supported with some color pictures plus an attractive design, which aid in the overall presentation and digestion of the material.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fascinating stories from journalistic frontlines are bogged down by the author’s forced memoir. Complete detours into the author’s life (an affair, ghost stories) detract from the fascinating and tragic stories from Haiti and El Salvador.

[LBHam · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 Glad I read it. Fast read. Not the best but interesting

[Barb Miller · Rating 3 out of 5]

A well written book but it needed depth. He described the conditions in Central America but I felt it was lacking background details.

[Gemma · Rating 4 out of 5]

At first, I wasn't sure I was going to like this book. Gerry Hadden spent a lot of time in the early chapters convincing me not to like him - he complains about his assistant being six minutes late and kicks a family out of his house in Mexico City. How, I wondered, was this guy ever on the verge of becoming a Buddhist monk? He seems far too high-strung, far too easily shaken. But, as I read on, I discovered a truly delightful memoir, and a portrait of a man who is not afraid to present himself in a bad light (though I'm not always sure he's aware of when this is the case).

Hadden was obviously a sympathetic and dedicated journalist. His reflections on the absurd and dangerous positions he found himself are funny and gripping - he shows his prowess as a reporter by creating interest in all of his subjects. For much of the book, I wished for more. I wanted to hear the stories he was recording, feel the shaking of the earthquakes as I read. That's good storytelling, though I'd rather use the word "raconteur". These are really read best as anecdotes, snapshots of the life of a foreign correspondent, and not as any kind of geopolitical commentary or redemption story.

Never the Hope Itself is not about Haiti or Latin America. Those are just places that Hadden's story happened to take place. It's a compelling story, but it's difficult to get a bead on what the story really is. There are red herrings - there is Lazaro, there are the teenagers in Cite du Soleil - though they have their own stories, they are not this one. They are the herbs that provide spice to Hadden's essential brew of transformation, reminding us to Hadden, there is no objective journalism; it is always a story about the reporter.

[Donna Riley-lein · Rating 4 out of 5]

Never the Hope Itself
Gerry Hadden

I received this book as part of the Goodreads first reader program.

To be a reporter, especially one dropped into a foreign country is difficult. That’s the least you can say. You don’t know the people, the culture, all the players and their hidden agendas. So, how do you communicate fair and accurate news back home?
Hadden becomes a reporter for National Public Radio (NPR) through what he describes as a whirlwind process. He leaves the spiritual path he had chosen behind for something decidedly more . . . secular.
He’s a reporter for NPR in Latin America, pitching story ideas to headquarters, getting the go-ahead on just a few.
He has to set up a place to live in work in Mexico, and discovers a great place. The only thing—the house that Hadden wishes to use as his home and office is occupied by the maid and her family that lived with the previous occupant. He does not find this out until he’s moved in.
Hadden is sent all over Latin America and then to Haiti, covering the stories from that often-neglected area in the early part of this century. He sees the Haiti earthquake, the politics, and tries to imitate what illegal migrants do in getting to the United States from Latin America.
In between, Hadden has real personal problems – what happens when your “fixer” is broken? How do you deal with falling in love with a married woman?
The book is interesting for the look at South America, and more so for how the stories you hear on the radio get produced. It is even more interesting to see how the heart of a reporter changes.

[Peter · Rating 3 out of 5]

The American journalist Gerry Hadden published Never the Hope Itself: Love and Ghosts in Latin America in 2011. This book is about Hadden's time as a foreign correspondent for National Public Radio in Latin America from 2000 until July 2004, when he resigned. The book's title comes from Hadden’s thoughts about following the migrants traveling from Sonora, Mexico (Hadden 263) trying to cross the Mexican and American border in the early 21st Century (Hadden 271-272). Hadden thinks, watching the migrants walk away from him, that “hope’s footsteps diminishing, but never the hope itself” (Hadden 272). The issue of migration is a central theme in the book. Events in Haiti also sandwich the book from the Haitian presidential election of 2000 until 2004, when Haitian President Jean-Betrand Aristide was forced from the Haitian presidency. The epilogue begins with the sentence, “When the U.S. Marines and an army of United Nations bureaucrats had gotten a momentary handle on Haiti’s unrest, I was able to fly back to Mexico City” (Hadden 339). The book covers the drug wars in Panama and Columbia, among other events. Hadden interweaves the story of his personal life with current events. The book ends with him becoming a family man. The ghosts in the title come from Hadden, who believes his house is in Mexico City. Hadden’s memoir is a readable memoir of a Latin American correspondent in the early 21st Century.

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gerry Hadden was assigned to the Latin American section of NPR not long before 9/11. When the US turned its focus elsewhere, he was left to cover stories of enormous import knowing that they might never be told. Meanwhile, the book talks about the way his life in Mexico changes as he changes with all that he sees and experiences.

His writing is powerful and the stories he tells are moving and heart-breaking. They were also fascinating and informative. I wish he had included more. Even though the stories he reported on happened more than 10 years ago, many of them are still ongoing and relevant to what's happening in the world today.

I was less interested in the his own personal story - ghosts, tenants, friends, relationships, but it was interesting to see his ending point. That moment when his job and his personal life intertwined in such as way that he knew he had to make changes. It's all too easy to forget that even though journalists are trained to keep emotional space between themselves and the stories that they report there is no real way to keep the tragedies around them from making an impact on their lives. So ultimately I'm glad he talked about himself.

[Kerry · Rating 3 out of 5]

I guess it portrayed more to me about what it is like to live the life of an international correspondent, than information about Latin America and Haiti, except in an indirect way. Currently as an expat living abroad it made me think what a challenge it must be to be a visitor some where trying to get at the heart of situations and find new fresh perspectives on a story. I just find it difficult to know a place after really living there for sometime, it's hard to imagine capturing it on brief visits. Then again, fresh eyes may make a person more observant.

This book reads more like a series of articles with the author being the thread that ties them all together. Once again I exhibit my favoritism for the novel structure because the vignettes that are intriguing I would like to continue and others that I wish would end, carry on.

I guess I would prefer a thicker thread tying my assortment of pieces together. Nonetheless, interesting accounts and nice writing. It was just easier to read a chapter and put it down for awhile.

[Timothy Hoiland · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are a handful of podcasts I listen to, though one of my very favorites isn’t even a podcast per se. Rather, NPR allows you to subscribe to Latin America news stories — three to five minutes each, more or less — and then listen to them without interruption. Because I don’t listen to them every day or even every week, they tend to add up, so sometimes while cleaning up the kitchen or doing something else around the apartment I’ll just listen to a string of them. Last year in Pennsylvania, when Katie and I lived 45 minutes apart, I’d often listen to these snippets on the drive back and forth between Reading and Lancaster.

And invariably I’d wonder what the life of an NPR Latin America correspondent must be like. Then I came across Gerry Hadden’s Never The Hope Itself: Love and Ghosts in Latin America and Haiti (Harper), and I got my answer...

- See more at: http://tjhoiland.com/wordpress/2012/0...

[Ellen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This tale, or series of connected tales, by a former NPR reporter about his time covering Latin America, has great humor, vivid descriptions of people and places, and most of all, excellent storytelling. Each person we meet as we accompany Gerry on his journey, often to places destroyed by war, drugs, poverty, and despair, becomes alive to the reader. Every place he goes and person he encounters is unique and Gerry brings them to life with great specificity. It's a lively story, full of life and of hope for a region that is too often overlooked or ignored by its large and powerful neighbors. Gerry shares with us the perspective of others, while revealing his own personal struggles along the way. I highly recommend this book.

[Sasha · Rating 4 out of 5]

I first would like to state that I received this book through the goodreads giveaway. I feel it was a really interesting book and I enjoyed it. It is often that South America has been neglected in the news – media. I appreciate the pictures showing life that he added as an insert in the middle of the book. The author has written a beautifully honest recollection. I appreciate the honestly with which he wrote this book with all the detail in which he has explained certain life events. The way he expressed his feelings and thoughts in this book were wonderfully well written and really made you look at what he was writing about. I really had a hard time putting the book down. I would highly recommend this book.

[Nicole · Rating 3 out of 5]

The account of an NPR reporter and his personal and work adventures in Mexico, Haiti and Central America. It's nothing too special but if you are a fan of NPR and want to gain some insight into the life of a reporter, I recommend it.

[Katryn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well-written memoir, but I would have liked a bit more history/context along with the personal anecdotes.

[Peter Allen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hair-raising account of the author's coverage of Latin America and Haiti from 2000 to 2004. And, yes, it includes ghosts. Fascinating account of a journalist's experiences.