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Revolution: The Year I Fell in Love and Went to Join the Sandinistas
Hailed as a "virtuosic one-woman show" ( Time Out New York ) this New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice pick tells the funny and poignant story of the year the author ran away from college with her idealistic boyfriend and followed him to Nicaragua to join the Sandinistas.
Despite their earnest commitment to a myriad of revolutionary causes and to each other, Deb and her boyfriend find themselves unwanted, unhelpful, and unprepared as they bop around Central America, looking for "revolution jobs." The year is 1987, a turning point in the Cold War, although the world doesn't know it yet, especially not Unferth and her fiancé (he proposes on a roadside in El Salvador). The months wear on and cracks begin to form in their they get fired, they get sick, they run out of money, they grow disillusioned with the revolution and each other. But years later the trip remains fixed in her mind and she finally goes back to Nicaragua to try to make sense of it all. Unferth's heartbreaking and hilarious memoir perfectly captures the youthful search for meaning, and is an absorbing rumination on what happens to a country and its people after the revolution is over.
Despite their earnest commitment to a myriad of revolutionary causes and to each other, Deb and her boyfriend find themselves unwanted, unhelpful, and unprepared as they bop around Central America, looking for "revolution jobs." The year is 1987, a turning point in the Cold War, although the world doesn't know it yet, especially not Unferth and her fiancé (he proposes on a roadside in El Salvador). The months wear on and cracks begin to form in their they get fired, they get sick, they run out of money, they grow disillusioned with the revolution and each other. But years later the trip remains fixed in her mind and she finally goes back to Nicaragua to try to make sense of it all. Unferth's heartbreaking and hilarious memoir perfectly captures the youthful search for meaning, and is an absorbing rumination on what happens to a country and its people after the revolution is over.
208 pages, Paperback
First published January 22, 2011
9 people are currently reading
670 people want to read
About the author
Deb Olin Unferth
25 books228 followersDeb Olin Unferth is the author of six books, including the novel Barn 8 and the story collection Wait Till You See Me Dance. Her work has appeared in Harper’s, The Paris Review, Granta, Vice, NOON, the New York Times, and McSweeney’s. She has received a Guggenheim fellowship, a Creative Capital grant, three Pushcart Prizes, and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. An associate professor at the University of Texas in Austin, she also runs the Pen City Writers, a creative writing program at a penitentiary in southern Texas.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 85 reviews
January 5, 2012
I LOVE Deb Olin Unferth. I want this book RIGHT NOW.
***
OMIGOD THE BOOK GODS ANSWERED ME. I won the GR giveaway for this, holy shit!!!
***
This review was originally written for CCLaP, and the book was also on my CCLaP best-of-2011 list
"Nineteen eighty-seven is the year I did nothing. The year I fought in no war, contributed to no cause, didn't get shot, jailed, or inured. We didn't starve, didn't die, didn't save anyone either. Didn't change anyone's mind for the better, or the worse. We had absolutely no effect on anything that happened. The only thing that changed as a result of our presence was us."
A quick synopsis: Deb and her boyfriend George leave college in 1987, when she is eighteen and he is twenty, to spend a year traveling through Central America--Mexico, Belize, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama--in search of revolutions to foment, or at least "revolution jobs" to procure. Along the way, they work in an orphanage in teaching the children reading and sports, until they are asked to leave. They build bicycles in Nicaragua for a few days before being fired for incompetence. They trade off bouts of diarrhea and fevers and scabies, get robbed over and over, have animated political and philosophical discussions with other Internacionalistas (called Sandalistas by the locals), conduct and record interviews with anyone who will speak with them (though they later lose all the tapes), keep meticulous journals, bicker and make up and fight again, and generally botch everything they set out to do meaningfully.
There is plenty of firsthand history here, as she moves from country to country, revolution to revolution. She teaches us about guerillas who have been successful, soldiers and how they interrogate, spies and their disguises, priests who renounced religion in favor of politics, the way that the things she experienced, in retrospect, wound up playing out on the international stage. But the book is also suffused with the unreliability of memory. Unferth is constantly cancelling out her stories by questioning whether they really happened just then, or there, or in that way. She describes a family trip to El Salvador many years earlier, listing all the awful things that happened, and what a terrible memory it was. Then she says that her mother remembers it as a wonderful time. She tells us that she and George were in Managua when the radical newspaper La Prensa reopened, detailing the crowds, the paperboys, the cheering. But then she backtracks--were they really in Managua that day? Were there really such crowds? Was that the same day they saw the Russian ballet, or the day she cut the soldier's hair? Was La Prensa really even closed? This honesty and confusion is, to me, a welcome and unique stance in our current over-saturated memoir world, to admit that we are fallible, that memory is a trap and a lie. Memoirists always seem so sure of themselves, so certain of who said what to whom and where and when, and it is refreshing to see Unferth questioning and questioning. It makes the rest of her story less iron-clad, true, but also more human, more relatable.
And her language! Beautiful and strange, like everything she writes. "She had the face of captive royalty, the voice of something gentle in a cage." "I hated him with the freshness of wet cement, a new imprint, a hand coming down on my mind and marking it." "The sun was like another language. The sun was like a shout in the sky." Her prose is generally straightforward and sparse, getting out of the way of the story, but sprinkled with moments of beauty, with profound realizations, with sharp and acute characterizations. It makes for extremely engaging, propelling reading.
Starting even with its subtitle, "The Year I Fell in Love and Went to Join the War," Revolution is told in a particular tone, one of amused disbelief in one's former self. It's easy to picture Unferth tapping this out, shaking her head and rolling her eyes--was that really me doing all those ridiculous things? Though there are a few times when this façade is cracked, and she lets real emotions come through, the bulk of the book is extremely self-conscious. She keeps askance of the narrative, condescending to it, to her former naïve self and her bizarre genius boyfriend and all the self-important buffoons they met along the way. "Imagine. We were walking across their war, juggling. We were bringing guitars, plays adapted from Gogol, elephants wearing tasseled hats. The Nicaraguans wanted land, literacy, a decent doctor. We wanted a nice sing-a-long and a ballet. We weren't a revolution. We were an armed circus." This tone choice is clearly a defense mechanism, forestalling criticism via self-mockery, and it is a successful technique, to a point. It grounds the narrative, saving it from corny idealism and keeping it from spinning off into maudlin recollection or inflated self-importance. But ultimately there is such a bemused, disapproving distance that the reader too is forced most of the time into their own jaded head-shaking disbelief, rather than finding a way to embrace the person she was, living the life she chose. Nonetheless, Revolution still manages to be a powerful book. It's ultimately an incredible journey she took, full of insane things she did, and Unferth's language and narration is more than up to the task.
***
OMIGOD THE BOOK GODS ANSWERED ME. I won the GR giveaway for this, holy shit!!!
***
This review was originally written for CCLaP, and the book was also on my CCLaP best-of-2011 list
"Nineteen eighty-seven is the year I did nothing. The year I fought in no war, contributed to no cause, didn't get shot, jailed, or inured. We didn't starve, didn't die, didn't save anyone either. Didn't change anyone's mind for the better, or the worse. We had absolutely no effect on anything that happened. The only thing that changed as a result of our presence was us."
A quick synopsis: Deb and her boyfriend George leave college in 1987, when she is eighteen and he is twenty, to spend a year traveling through Central America--Mexico, Belize, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama--in search of revolutions to foment, or at least "revolution jobs" to procure. Along the way, they work in an orphanage in teaching the children reading and sports, until they are asked to leave. They build bicycles in Nicaragua for a few days before being fired for incompetence. They trade off bouts of diarrhea and fevers and scabies, get robbed over and over, have animated political and philosophical discussions with other Internacionalistas (called Sandalistas by the locals), conduct and record interviews with anyone who will speak with them (though they later lose all the tapes), keep meticulous journals, bicker and make up and fight again, and generally botch everything they set out to do meaningfully.
There is plenty of firsthand history here, as she moves from country to country, revolution to revolution. She teaches us about guerillas who have been successful, soldiers and how they interrogate, spies and their disguises, priests who renounced religion in favor of politics, the way that the things she experienced, in retrospect, wound up playing out on the international stage. But the book is also suffused with the unreliability of memory. Unferth is constantly cancelling out her stories by questioning whether they really happened just then, or there, or in that way. She describes a family trip to El Salvador many years earlier, listing all the awful things that happened, and what a terrible memory it was. Then she says that her mother remembers it as a wonderful time. She tells us that she and George were in Managua when the radical newspaper La Prensa reopened, detailing the crowds, the paperboys, the cheering. But then she backtracks--were they really in Managua that day? Were there really such crowds? Was that the same day they saw the Russian ballet, or the day she cut the soldier's hair? Was La Prensa really even closed? This honesty and confusion is, to me, a welcome and unique stance in our current over-saturated memoir world, to admit that we are fallible, that memory is a trap and a lie. Memoirists always seem so sure of themselves, so certain of who said what to whom and where and when, and it is refreshing to see Unferth questioning and questioning. It makes the rest of her story less iron-clad, true, but also more human, more relatable.
And her language! Beautiful and strange, like everything she writes. "She had the face of captive royalty, the voice of something gentle in a cage." "I hated him with the freshness of wet cement, a new imprint, a hand coming down on my mind and marking it." "The sun was like another language. The sun was like a shout in the sky." Her prose is generally straightforward and sparse, getting out of the way of the story, but sprinkled with moments of beauty, with profound realizations, with sharp and acute characterizations. It makes for extremely engaging, propelling reading.
Starting even with its subtitle, "The Year I Fell in Love and Went to Join the War," Revolution is told in a particular tone, one of amused disbelief in one's former self. It's easy to picture Unferth tapping this out, shaking her head and rolling her eyes--was that really me doing all those ridiculous things? Though there are a few times when this façade is cracked, and she lets real emotions come through, the bulk of the book is extremely self-conscious. She keeps askance of the narrative, condescending to it, to her former naïve self and her bizarre genius boyfriend and all the self-important buffoons they met along the way. "Imagine. We were walking across their war, juggling. We were bringing guitars, plays adapted from Gogol, elephants wearing tasseled hats. The Nicaraguans wanted land, literacy, a decent doctor. We wanted a nice sing-a-long and a ballet. We weren't a revolution. We were an armed circus." This tone choice is clearly a defense mechanism, forestalling criticism via self-mockery, and it is a successful technique, to a point. It grounds the narrative, saving it from corny idealism and keeping it from spinning off into maudlin recollection or inflated self-importance. But ultimately there is such a bemused, disapproving distance that the reader too is forced most of the time into their own jaded head-shaking disbelief, rather than finding a way to embrace the person she was, living the life she chose. Nonetheless, Revolution still manages to be a powerful book. It's ultimately an incredible journey she took, full of insane things she did, and Unferth's language and narration is more than up to the task.
Read
January 12, 2025The time and place of this book is compelling (1987 during the increasing struggle between revolution and dictatorship in Central and South America), but the biographical aspect was completely uninspiring. While I hoped to read about the affect of revolutionary momentum on an idealistic American girl who hoped to be part of the change, instead I found a whiny account of an eighteen year old dealing with boyfriend troubles and diarrhea. Written in her adult life, the author still shows no sign of learning, growth, understanding, or insight into any of the events that she witnessed. Instead, she merely ponders her inability to understand the collapse of her relationship. Ugh.
February 28, 2016
Sherrie Miranda gives 5.0 out of 5 stars & says "Civil Wars And Revolutions Are Not All They're Cracked Up To Be!" February 28, 2016
This review is for: Revolution: The Year I Fell in Love and Went to Join the Sandinistas (Paperback)
Although I agree with the criticism some have given this book, I also think that's what makes this memoir so fascinating. Unferth and her boyfriend had no idea what they were getting themselves into!
I totally relate to this book and had similar ideas of my own to go join the Revolution. My boyfriend (who later became my husband, then my ex) was Salvadoran so he knew it was no joking matter to go join a guerrilla group or any other group during the civil wars in Central and South America.
We even had some friends who were in a punk rock band that went to Nicaragua after the Revolution. The more I heard, the more I wanted to go. I finally did go to El Salvador, but my boyfriend's family made sure I didn't get into any really bad situations.
It's interesting that of all the people I met who had been to Nicaragua, not one of them told me the raw truth that Unferth tells here. I had no idea that it would have been so difficult! Yes, I knew there were very young soldiers who were indoctrinated to believe anyone who cared about the people were Communists (this was how it was in El Salvador). I knew that the Sandinistas were mostly young idealists who knew what hunger and violence was like (El Salvador too, that's how both sides were able to recruit so many teens). But I never knew about the day to day difficulties of lack of food, money and jobs, and the abundance of diseases that could KILL you!
Unferth bares her soul like few have done, especially as it relates to Central America, idealists and trying to understand another culture.
One of my favorite facts that Unferth brings up is that the locals didn't call us American and European idealists "Internationalistas," but instead referred to us (or them, since I didn't go) as "Sandalistas" because of the fact that almost all of them wore some kind of sandals! They may have arrived in Birkenstocks, but eventually had to wear whatever some local shoemaker with no resources could make for them.
I must admit that this memoir that rads like a novel made me very glad that my headstrong Salvadoran boyfriend never gave in to the silly whims of an American girl who, at that time, romanticized the entire idea of helping poor people make a better life for themselves. It truly was NO JOKE. Knowing me, I might not have made it back alive!
Sherrie Miranda is the author of "Secrets & Lies in El Salvador: Shelly's Journey"
Sherrie Miranda's historically based, coming of age, Adventure novel “Secrets & Lies in El Salvador” is about an American girl in war-torn El Salvador:
http://tinyurl.com/klxbt4y
Her husband made a video for her novel. He wrote the song too:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P11Ch...
This review is for: Revolution: The Year I Fell in Love and Went to Join the Sandinistas (Paperback)
Although I agree with the criticism some have given this book, I also think that's what makes this memoir so fascinating. Unferth and her boyfriend had no idea what they were getting themselves into!
I totally relate to this book and had similar ideas of my own to go join the Revolution. My boyfriend (who later became my husband, then my ex) was Salvadoran so he knew it was no joking matter to go join a guerrilla group or any other group during the civil wars in Central and South America.
We even had some friends who were in a punk rock band that went to Nicaragua after the Revolution. The more I heard, the more I wanted to go. I finally did go to El Salvador, but my boyfriend's family made sure I didn't get into any really bad situations.
It's interesting that of all the people I met who had been to Nicaragua, not one of them told me the raw truth that Unferth tells here. I had no idea that it would have been so difficult! Yes, I knew there were very young soldiers who were indoctrinated to believe anyone who cared about the people were Communists (this was how it was in El Salvador). I knew that the Sandinistas were mostly young idealists who knew what hunger and violence was like (El Salvador too, that's how both sides were able to recruit so many teens). But I never knew about the day to day difficulties of lack of food, money and jobs, and the abundance of diseases that could KILL you!
Unferth bares her soul like few have done, especially as it relates to Central America, idealists and trying to understand another culture.
One of my favorite facts that Unferth brings up is that the locals didn't call us American and European idealists "Internationalistas," but instead referred to us (or them, since I didn't go) as "Sandalistas" because of the fact that almost all of them wore some kind of sandals! They may have arrived in Birkenstocks, but eventually had to wear whatever some local shoemaker with no resources could make for them.
I must admit that this memoir that rads like a novel made me very glad that my headstrong Salvadoran boyfriend never gave in to the silly whims of an American girl who, at that time, romanticized the entire idea of helping poor people make a better life for themselves. It truly was NO JOKE. Knowing me, I might not have made it back alive!
Sherrie Miranda is the author of "Secrets & Lies in El Salvador: Shelly's Journey"
Sherrie Miranda's historically based, coming of age, Adventure novel “Secrets & Lies in El Salvador” is about an American girl in war-torn El Salvador:
http://tinyurl.com/klxbt4y
Her husband made a video for her novel. He wrote the song too:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P11Ch...
Read
March 26, 2011This book is less a memoir about being in Central America during the 1980s and more about the author remembering being a 19 year old in a bad relationship while in Central America during the 1980s. I doubt many people remember their 19 year old selves fondly and this definitely comes through. An interesting book, but the two main characters are pretty annoying, again probably because the author doesn't remember them fondly. I really enjoyed the last quarter of the book when she begins discussing how this experience impacted her life as an adult and wish that she had included more of this analysis throughout. Overall an entertaining book and an easy read. I'll definitely look for more books by Unferth in the future.
March 22, 2011
This was my work's March 2011 book club selection, since we had been reading a lot of "dark" stuff lately and wanted something more upbeat and comical.
It was funny (at times), but it wasn't what I expected. I thought more of the plot would focus on Unferth's experiences living in war-ridden Central America during the 80s, but that served more as a backdrop to her ruminations about her relationship with her beau at the time.
The book was definitely a quick read--I got through it in just about 4 days, reading exclusively on my commute--but I don't know that I'd necessarily recommend it.
It was funny (at times), but it wasn't what I expected. I thought more of the plot would focus on Unferth's experiences living in war-ridden Central America during the 80s, but that served more as a backdrop to her ruminations about her relationship with her beau at the time.
The book was definitely a quick read--I got through it in just about 4 days, reading exclusively on my commute--but I don't know that I'd necessarily recommend it.
March 4, 2013
TheRumpus.net has this neat little ditty you can sign up for called Letters in the Mail. A couple times every month, you'll get letters containing personal stories and/or anecdotes from various authors and writers. Occasionally, a return address will be listed should one elect to reply. For several months, I enjoyed these letters but never really felt compelled to reply. Finally, one letter came along that personally touched me. I can't even remember what it was about, but it was the first letter I responded to, a letter that I 'needed' to respond to. That was my introduction to Deb Olin Unferth.
I wrote to her about some blah-blah-nobody-cares stuff and she eventually responded, mailing me a copy of her book, a story that tells her coming of age tale in all of its stupid glory. She thought it might help with my situation, you know, to see familiar feelings from an outside perspective. Naturally, I was skeptical of that, but I finally got around to reading it anyway. It was a free book. No complaints here.
Having just finished it, I am astonished. This has been a quality read. It started out a little slow-paced, but most autobiographical tales often do. Once you become invested in these stories, they have a way of grabbing you by the necktie and tugging you through the pages into the author's life, and you cry with them and laugh with them, saying you would've known better, but knowing that you wouldn't have.
Unferth details her defining quest to several Central American countries to help The Sandinistas and their communist revolution, at least - that was the plan. They never really accomplish much of what they set out to do, and expectations fall apart and people reveal their true colors...the glorified start to show their flaws with wear and the voiceless meek begin to discover their own special power. It sounds corny, I'll bet. But it's good.
The centerpiece of this novel lies with her boyfriend George, a supremely confident and charismatic Christian, a young man who draws people to him with his indefinable energy and his expansive personality, big enough for two - so why bother with another. She's the one that follows him into his helltastic void, not because she's particularly political or religious, but because she needs a purpose, and so his desires and ambitions become hers. These wee damsel types always irk me in the movies, perhaps because they remind me of myself. It's that legendary line in On the Road, "The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to be saved..." And so forth.
Revolution: The Year I Fell in Love tracks the author's journey from tagging along in the shadows of great idea-men to breaking away and flowering into something unsure and new, something like blind hands feeling out the world, something not better or worse but finally honest. Something like self-discovery.
I wrote to her about some blah-blah-nobody-cares stuff and she eventually responded, mailing me a copy of her book, a story that tells her coming of age tale in all of its stupid glory. She thought it might help with my situation, you know, to see familiar feelings from an outside perspective. Naturally, I was skeptical of that, but I finally got around to reading it anyway. It was a free book. No complaints here.
Having just finished it, I am astonished. This has been a quality read. It started out a little slow-paced, but most autobiographical tales often do. Once you become invested in these stories, they have a way of grabbing you by the necktie and tugging you through the pages into the author's life, and you cry with them and laugh with them, saying you would've known better, but knowing that you wouldn't have.
Unferth details her defining quest to several Central American countries to help The Sandinistas and their communist revolution, at least - that was the plan. They never really accomplish much of what they set out to do, and expectations fall apart and people reveal their true colors...the glorified start to show their flaws with wear and the voiceless meek begin to discover their own special power. It sounds corny, I'll bet. But it's good.
The centerpiece of this novel lies with her boyfriend George, a supremely confident and charismatic Christian, a young man who draws people to him with his indefinable energy and his expansive personality, big enough for two - so why bother with another. She's the one that follows him into his helltastic void, not because she's particularly political or religious, but because she needs a purpose, and so his desires and ambitions become hers. These wee damsel types always irk me in the movies, perhaps because they remind me of myself. It's that legendary line in On the Road, "The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to be saved..." And so forth.
Revolution: The Year I Fell in Love tracks the author's journey from tagging along in the shadows of great idea-men to breaking away and flowering into something unsure and new, something like blind hands feeling out the world, something not better or worse but finally honest. Something like self-discovery.
March 29, 2011
When Deb Olin Unferth was 18, she fell in love with George, a fellow student, who was rather rebellious, and bit strange. Being in love, it seemed young Deb would do anything for her boyfriend. She changed her religion from Jewish to Christian, to her family’s dismay, and followed George on his journey to ‘foment’ the revolution in Central America.
The naiveté of youth leads Deb to somewhere she is totally unprepared for, and the often treacherous journey to Nicaragua leaves an impression on her that remains to this day. From reading the memoir, it seems that some twenty years after her venture into this unknown territory, she is still deeply affected by that trip. Indeed she made a journey back to Nicaragua after ten years and then continued to visit the places she’d been to in her youth for years, as if the country had some kind of hold on her.
This book is one woman’s story about how love can make people do the strangest things, and also how first love can leave its mark for a lifetime. It appears, from reading the book, that the author retains a deep curiosity about her ex-fiancé, George (he proposed whilst they were on the road and they broke off the engagement soon after. They lost touch a few years after returning home).
On their trip to join the revolution in 1987, Deb and George find jobs and get fired, sleep in spider-infested hotels, get very ill, get robbed many times, and almost drown at sea. There are very interesting stories about their adventure told in a humourous and sentimental way by the author.
The book is very well written, and kept me interested. It’s quite thought-provoking and insightful in parts.
Reviewed by Maria Savva as a reviewer for Bookpleasures.com
The naiveté of youth leads Deb to somewhere she is totally unprepared for, and the often treacherous journey to Nicaragua leaves an impression on her that remains to this day. From reading the memoir, it seems that some twenty years after her venture into this unknown territory, she is still deeply affected by that trip. Indeed she made a journey back to Nicaragua after ten years and then continued to visit the places she’d been to in her youth for years, as if the country had some kind of hold on her.
This book is one woman’s story about how love can make people do the strangest things, and also how first love can leave its mark for a lifetime. It appears, from reading the book, that the author retains a deep curiosity about her ex-fiancé, George (he proposed whilst they were on the road and they broke off the engagement soon after. They lost touch a few years after returning home).
On their trip to join the revolution in 1987, Deb and George find jobs and get fired, sleep in spider-infested hotels, get very ill, get robbed many times, and almost drown at sea. There are very interesting stories about their adventure told in a humourous and sentimental way by the author.
The book is very well written, and kept me interested. It’s quite thought-provoking and insightful in parts.
Reviewed by Maria Savva as a reviewer for Bookpleasures.com
February 16, 2011
Last year, I read Unferth's first novel Vacation, which I thought featured fantastic writing but left me feeling a little flat on the characters and story. This book, even though it's non-fiction, takes basically everything I loved about her novel and adds some emotional depth that was sorely needed. I don't know, maybe it's just easier to add emotion when you're writing about your own experiences, but I also think that the detached tone of Vacation was intentional, and I'm glad to see that it's not how she always writes.
This book tells the story of a trip the author took in the 1980's, to various Central American countries to seek out and join a revolution. There are very little politics discussed - Unferth focuses mainly on the personal growth that she experienced during the trip. It's sort of a combination of a travelogue and memoir, and is as good of a coming-of-age story as I've ever read.
Unferth is funny, smart, and an extremely talented writer, and she is quickly becoming one of my favorite writers. I highly recommend this one, and once again I can't wait to see what she'll do next.
This book tells the story of a trip the author took in the 1980's, to various Central American countries to seek out and join a revolution. There are very little politics discussed - Unferth focuses mainly on the personal growth that she experienced during the trip. It's sort of a combination of a travelogue and memoir, and is as good of a coming-of-age story as I've ever read.
Unferth is funny, smart, and an extremely talented writer, and she is quickly becoming one of my favorite writers. I highly recommend this one, and once again I can't wait to see what she'll do next.
June 8, 2011
2011 Book 66/100
I would give this a 3.5 stars if that were possible, if only for the paragraph on page 107 that begins "I took my dress off and walked around in my underwear." and that asserts "My coming of age story, if I had one, would be right here. It didn't involve a loss of innocence or man's inhumanity to man. It was me taking my clothes off and marching in a circle around the room. Somehow I knew - nothing specific, I just knew - I wasn't who I would be. More of me was coming." Which so beautifully sums up this memoir of self-awareness, which is the journey within the journey in this book, as she and her then boyfriend cum fiancee travel through much of Central America in thrir attempts to join the revolution in the late 80's.
I would give this a 3.5 stars if that were possible, if only for the paragraph on page 107 that begins "I took my dress off and walked around in my underwear." and that asserts "My coming of age story, if I had one, would be right here. It didn't involve a loss of innocence or man's inhumanity to man. It was me taking my clothes off and marching in a circle around the room. Somehow I knew - nothing specific, I just knew - I wasn't who I would be. More of me was coming." Which so beautifully sums up this memoir of self-awareness, which is the journey within the journey in this book, as she and her then boyfriend cum fiancee travel through much of Central America in thrir attempts to join the revolution in the late 80's.
January 7, 2013
This book was hard to finish. The writing is just so bad.
At one point, there was a page without a single period on it. There was no congruence of stories. And after finishing it, it is hard to tell what happened in it at all.
I'm not positive what "the revolution" she always spoke of was. I'm not positive what they did at all in Central America in fact. She spends a great deal talking about her boyfriend George. She also goes a great deal into stalking George. All stuff that is horribly uninteresting.
Random sentences will be written in Spanish with no translation. I don't know Spanish.
I'm left with no idea of what I read. Some collection of random anecdotes from her life. That don't feel like they add up to anything, and don't feel like they mean anything.
At one point, there was a page without a single period on it. There was no congruence of stories. And after finishing it, it is hard to tell what happened in it at all.
I'm not positive what "the revolution" she always spoke of was. I'm not positive what they did at all in Central America in fact. She spends a great deal talking about her boyfriend George. She also goes a great deal into stalking George. All stuff that is horribly uninteresting.
Random sentences will be written in Spanish with no translation. I don't know Spanish.
I'm left with no idea of what I read. Some collection of random anecdotes from her life. That don't feel like they add up to anything, and don't feel like they mean anything.
February 4, 2011
Unferth captures the innocence and freshness of the idealistic girl who quit college and ran away with her boyfriend to join whichever revolution they could find. Her memoir of spending 1987 in Central America is laugh-out-loud funny on the surface, yet infused with the chaos and turbulence that marked the Sandinistas. Unferth is a gifted writer whose words flow seamlessly. Her droll account is equal parts memoir, travelogue, social, political, cultural context, and coming-of-age.
Although my revolution was two decades before Unferth's, reading her book made me want to march through the house chanting "Hell no, we won't go!'.
Although my revolution was two decades before Unferth's, reading her book made me want to march through the house chanting "Hell no, we won't go!'.
August 8, 2014
This book was absolute torture to get through. And god, I really really wanted to like this book especially being that this was my main read while traveling to Nicaragua. The author's writing style was so incredibly difficult to follow and her sense of humor was sarcastic and not funny at all. I found the whole experience incredibly annoying and truly forced myself to get to the end. The story had so much potential, I mean, what young progressive revolutionary-minded person wouldn't fantasize about joining the struggle? I certainly have had those fantasies! I won't lie! Anyway, would never recommend this book. Don't bother.
June 16, 2015
Really.... interesting? I'm not even sure what to say about it. I enjoyed the writing a great deal, and it's a memoir, so I feel like I can't be critical, but.... leaving college to run away with your boyfriend to Central America to look for a revolution to join... I just... nope. I have no words. And I'm left with two burning questions: Did she ever figure out and recover from whatever was causing her big, distended, bloated belly, and, did she ever, EVER get over George? All that said, it was a fun, quick, enjoyable, frustrating read.
June 1, 2011
This book would have been better if the author had chosen to focus on the events in Central America, but instead she talks more about her boyfriend who brought her there. Towards the end she engages in more reflection about herself and her experiences, but by then it was too late for me to give this book more than two stars.
September 26, 2019
"It seemed to me that my father was standing behind a door and each time I opened it he was shouting, so I'd slam it shut and open it a few weeks later, and he'd be shouting again. Was he shouting all the time behind the door? Or did he start the shouting just as I opened it?"
February 24, 2016
page turner-- more like an accidental tourist on mission impossible...
June 29, 2021
Possibly the most irritating book I've ever read
May 19, 2025
I haven't felt my heart drop like this in a while.
Update: It holds up.
Update: It holds up.
March 4, 2023
OK, this is one of the strangest things I've ever read. I won't say I didn't enjoy it, because I did, but it felt like only half a book. Unferth is a wonderful writer and has some great little "end of chapter" comments. She also boldly reveals her youthful thinking and issues. However, if you're expecting to learn anything about the revolution in Nicaragua, just be aware that you won't! [By the way, the original title was Revolution: The Year I Fell in Love and Went to Join the Sandinistas.] Instead, you will find out about an immature girl who followed her boyfriend (who apparently was a committed Christian Marxist, although as a reader I'm quite unclear on that) to Central America.
The one thing I found rather mind-boggling is that we don't hear about any Central Americans! They traveled all around Central America in the late 80s. Did they not get to know any locals? And what exactly were they doing to support the revolution? And how did they afford to live down there? For that matter, how long were they actually there? All of these questions remain unanswered. So the writing is clever and enjoyable (although reading about her illnesses is a little tough), but I can't recommend this book.
The one thing I found rather mind-boggling is that we don't hear about any Central Americans! They traveled all around Central America in the late 80s. Did they not get to know any locals? And what exactly were they doing to support the revolution? And how did they afford to live down there? For that matter, how long were they actually there? All of these questions remain unanswered. So the writing is clever and enjoyable (although reading about her illnesses is a little tough), but I can't recommend this book.
June 19, 2019
This is a weird one. Because it is a GOOD 3. I've underlined passages of the text, read it a lot quicker than I have anything else recently, and there are parts that will resonate with me or pop into my mind and make me chuckle for years to come. But I didn't feel compeled to give it a higher rating.
This book is a memoir of Unferth's experience of running away with her boyfriend at 18 to join the Sandinistas revolution in 1987 Nicaragua. Some of her tales are hilarious and others harrowing. It is compelling to see the elements that led to Unferth's embarkment to the revolution and her eventual disillusionment.
Two of my favourite aspects about this book was that it is a travel memoir from before the internet. Previous memoirs that I have read tend to include more tech or go a lot more smoothly. Unferths experience appears to have been a total clusterfuck and it is amazing.
My other favourite part of the book was Unferth's narative voice. The ways she tells her tale gets across what actually happened but also how we mythologise our pasts to ourselves and others.
Would recommend.
This book is a memoir of Unferth's experience of running away with her boyfriend at 18 to join the Sandinistas revolution in 1987 Nicaragua. Some of her tales are hilarious and others harrowing. It is compelling to see the elements that led to Unferth's embarkment to the revolution and her eventual disillusionment.
Two of my favourite aspects about this book was that it is a travel memoir from before the internet. Previous memoirs that I have read tend to include more tech or go a lot more smoothly. Unferths experience appears to have been a total clusterfuck and it is amazing.
My other favourite part of the book was Unferth's narative voice. The ways she tells her tale gets across what actually happened but also how we mythologise our pasts to ourselves and others.
Would recommend.
November 23, 2025
This is one of my all-time favorite books ever. Deb writes so beautifully. It’s a fascinating story full of humor, culture, and for me, it took me back to being an earnest radical in college. It’s a book that I read every few years at least, and it always blows me away with how good it is! It lives up to its intriguing title and book cover and then some! I’d love to read another memoir by Deb. Her writing is exquisite and very quote worthy. I also can’t get over how funny she is! Books as good as this one are what life is about!
November 14, 2018
This book is funny, unsparing, self-deprecating and surprising -- and she does a great job of compression. The characters are sympathetic, and yet readers will come away with a great sense of the gap between great intentions and outcomes. More than anything else, I was hooked on the voice. Now I'll have to buy and read her other books (mostly novels and short fiction)
May 2, 2018
"Somehow I knew—nothing specific, I just knew—I wasn't who I would be."
So conflicted about this book. It was so honest and so quotable. But yet at the same time I didn't find myself actually wanting to read it; I had to force myself to finish it.
So conflicted about this book. It was so honest and so quotable. But yet at the same time I didn't find myself actually wanting to read it; I had to force myself to finish it.
August 29, 2017
"We—I and I—stand to one side and regard the girl we were."
June 11, 2018
I enjoyed reading this. Fun.
Read
January 25, 2023“We—I and I—stand to one side and regard the girl we were.”
February 18, 2011
Revolution: The Year I Fell in Love and Went to Join the War by Deb Olin Unferth is a memoir most easily summarized by an excerpt from the book itself:
"My boyfriend and I went to join the revolution.
We couldn’t find the first revolution.
The second revolution hired us on and then let us go.
We went to the other revolutions in the area- there were several- but every one we came to let us hang around for a few weeks but then made us leave.
We ran out of money and at last we came home.
I was eighteen. That’s the whole story."
Focusing on the year 1987, the memoir is told in a voice that is part naive 18 year old, desperately following her boyfriend wherever he goes, and part wise woman reflecting on her youthful experiences. Revolution is told in short chapters, fluttering throughout time, beginning with Unferth and her boyfriend, George, returning from Central America, with Unferth desperately craving McDonalds, "I had food in my heart and mind that morning", she writes. Later in the memoir when their Nicaraguan visas run out they go to Costa Rica. At this point they are both extremely malnourished and Unferth has taken on the look of a pregnant woman due to some kind of parasite likely living in her stomach, inflating it round and smooth. They purchase chocolate cake and Diet Coke and with a full mouth, Unferth states "Capitalism is wonderful."
Revolution manages to be both funny and heart-warming, told with a dry sense of humour and a remarkable openness. Unferth easily admits that she was so in love with George, a desperate young love, that she was willing to drop out of college and follow him into dangerous places, deciding to be Christian along the way. Her family was Jewish and her decision to abandon their religion was perhaps more disturbing to them then that fact that she had left home and written them from the Mexican border about her plans to find a revolution. Unfortunately, finding a revolution proves more difficult than George and her imagined. They get fired from an orphanage when Unferth refuses to wear a bra and instead travel around Central America with a tape recorder, interviewing various people and recording over old rock cassettes. Unferth seems incredibly unaware of the danger she is encountering, more concerned about whether or not she should marry George. Writing on her experiences with the revolution, she says:
"We had absolutely no effect on anything that happened. The only thing that changed as a result of our presence was us."
Unferth's writing is incredible, she has an eye for tiny details and description which are what make Revolution so memorable. Her writing is both quirky and profound, and she manages to find a touch of humour in all situations. For example, she writes that benefit of having this parasite that inflated her stomach was that people often thought she was pregnant and she was not beyond using that to get food. Unferth also delves into what happened to her and George afterwards, including how she hired a private detective to find him, supposedly because she was writing this book but she was possibly writing this book as an excuse to find out what had happened to him. It is a remarkably genuine story of her first true love and the desperate obsession that comes along with it.
In addition to the strength of the content itself, this may sound a bit silly, but this is also a case where the physical book is really gorgeous. I think the cover is perfect and the memoir is divided into sections separated by text in a style similar to the cover, including tiny butterflies.
Revolution: The Year I Fell in Love and Went to Join the War was my first experience with author Deb Olin Unferth, who has previously published a collection of short stories, Minor Robberies, as well as a novel, Vacation, however I have already purchased her previous works and am extremely excited to read them as she is clearly a rising literary star. Unferth has an incredible ability to be concise and clever, the book itself is a fairly short read, but what sticks with the reader afterwards is the power of the writing. In Revolution, Unferth reflects on her experiences attempting to join Central America revolutions with an observant and humorous eye while writing about universal emotions and the distances we will go, literally, for love.
"My boyfriend and I went to join the revolution.
We couldn’t find the first revolution.
The second revolution hired us on and then let us go.
We went to the other revolutions in the area- there were several- but every one we came to let us hang around for a few weeks but then made us leave.
We ran out of money and at last we came home.
I was eighteen. That’s the whole story."
Focusing on the year 1987, the memoir is told in a voice that is part naive 18 year old, desperately following her boyfriend wherever he goes, and part wise woman reflecting on her youthful experiences. Revolution is told in short chapters, fluttering throughout time, beginning with Unferth and her boyfriend, George, returning from Central America, with Unferth desperately craving McDonalds, "I had food in my heart and mind that morning", she writes. Later in the memoir when their Nicaraguan visas run out they go to Costa Rica. At this point they are both extremely malnourished and Unferth has taken on the look of a pregnant woman due to some kind of parasite likely living in her stomach, inflating it round and smooth. They purchase chocolate cake and Diet Coke and with a full mouth, Unferth states "Capitalism is wonderful."
Revolution manages to be both funny and heart-warming, told with a dry sense of humour and a remarkable openness. Unferth easily admits that she was so in love with George, a desperate young love, that she was willing to drop out of college and follow him into dangerous places, deciding to be Christian along the way. Her family was Jewish and her decision to abandon their religion was perhaps more disturbing to them then that fact that she had left home and written them from the Mexican border about her plans to find a revolution. Unfortunately, finding a revolution proves more difficult than George and her imagined. They get fired from an orphanage when Unferth refuses to wear a bra and instead travel around Central America with a tape recorder, interviewing various people and recording over old rock cassettes. Unferth seems incredibly unaware of the danger she is encountering, more concerned about whether or not she should marry George. Writing on her experiences with the revolution, she says:
"We had absolutely no effect on anything that happened. The only thing that changed as a result of our presence was us."
Unferth's writing is incredible, she has an eye for tiny details and description which are what make Revolution so memorable. Her writing is both quirky and profound, and she manages to find a touch of humour in all situations. For example, she writes that benefit of having this parasite that inflated her stomach was that people often thought she was pregnant and she was not beyond using that to get food. Unferth also delves into what happened to her and George afterwards, including how she hired a private detective to find him, supposedly because she was writing this book but she was possibly writing this book as an excuse to find out what had happened to him. It is a remarkably genuine story of her first true love and the desperate obsession that comes along with it.
In addition to the strength of the content itself, this may sound a bit silly, but this is also a case where the physical book is really gorgeous. I think the cover is perfect and the memoir is divided into sections separated by text in a style similar to the cover, including tiny butterflies.
Revolution: The Year I Fell in Love and Went to Join the War was my first experience with author Deb Olin Unferth, who has previously published a collection of short stories, Minor Robberies, as well as a novel, Vacation, however I have already purchased her previous works and am extremely excited to read them as she is clearly a rising literary star. Unferth has an incredible ability to be concise and clever, the book itself is a fairly short read, but what sticks with the reader afterwards is the power of the writing. In Revolution, Unferth reflects on her experiences attempting to join Central America revolutions with an observant and humorous eye while writing about universal emotions and the distances we will go, literally, for love.
February 19, 2018
A good memoir, fun to read.
March 29, 2011
Deb Olin Unferth’s Revolution: The Year I Fell In Love And Went To Join The War, did a lot of the things that I like to see writing do – particularly in the realm of point of view and character construction. While this is a memoir, it reads more like a novel so I’m going to discuss it as if it were. The point of view we see here is what one of my past instructors called a double I. This means that there are essentially two “speakers” who tell the story: the “I of the now” who heavily moderates the story being told by the “I of the then.” The “I of the now” is the voice who is writing the story and the “I of the then” is the voice to whom the actions are happening in that I’s dramatic present. This is a very common technique for memoirs and fiction alike as it allows reflection and interpretation of events to be included in the story which would not have been possible in a single I construction which would be limited to the actions and impressions of that moment. Readers tend to like that level of interpretation and –self-analysis that happens. The governing “I of the then” makes itself known in flashes; for example, in the chapter titled Love this sentence appears: “The truth is I had (have) a dread of being left.” Another example of this appears in the chapter titled Early Writings, where she discusses her journals. Both the narrator and George kept journals throughout their time in Central America. She says, “I don’t recognize the person who wrote those journals. She sounds like she’s quoting someone or practicing what she wants to say, lifting phrases from another’s tongue – George’s, presumably. I get exasperated with her, furious. I want to reach through the murk and shake her, but then another voice steps into my mind and defends her. ‘She’s trying to figure it out,’ this other me inside me says. ‘Be patient with her.’” Here we see the clash of that past self and her perceptions and words and the woman reading them later – after the choices have been made and some new degree of independence attained.
I, personally, despised George more or less from the get-go; however, my dislike of him is overshadowed by how well he (as well as the other characters in the novel) are developed. The chapter titled Typical Man is where George’s character is largely developed and the reader can see him both as a naïve young adult who thinks he is far more worldly than he is, as well as a humorous, quirky revolutionary – both of which are attractive and repellant (in characters, so to speak) simultaneously. The narrators only explanation for him is: “…he was just a typical guy in a typical place, and he made choices, and each choice changed him, and each change began to close off other possibilities, seal shut other rooms, exclude other people he might have become, one by one, until he could no longer be anything but what he was.” The “I of the now” governs this description of him, whereas prior to this the “I of the then” had been governing his description and as such had been granting him a degree of rose-tinted pleasantness. All of the characters are memorable in some way, and Unferth has a talent for presenting a few details that beautifully and dynamically capture the essence of the character, even though most of the tangential characters are only present for brief periods of time.
I, personally, despised George more or less from the get-go; however, my dislike of him is overshadowed by how well he (as well as the other characters in the novel) are developed. The chapter titled Typical Man is where George’s character is largely developed and the reader can see him both as a naïve young adult who thinks he is far more worldly than he is, as well as a humorous, quirky revolutionary – both of which are attractive and repellant (in characters, so to speak) simultaneously. The narrators only explanation for him is: “…he was just a typical guy in a typical place, and he made choices, and each choice changed him, and each change began to close off other possibilities, seal shut other rooms, exclude other people he might have become, one by one, until he could no longer be anything but what he was.” The “I of the now” governs this description of him, whereas prior to this the “I of the then” had been governing his description and as such had been granting him a degree of rose-tinted pleasantness. All of the characters are memorable in some way, and Unferth has a talent for presenting a few details that beautifully and dynamically capture the essence of the character, even though most of the tangential characters are only present for brief periods of time.
March 3, 2011
I’ve had very good luck with nonfiction so far this year, including Sarah Bakewell’s biography of Montaigne, Joyce Carol Oates’s A Widow’s Story, Janet Malcolm’s Two Lives, Elizabeth Gilbert’s Committed, and now Deb Olin Unferth’s book Revolution: The Year I Fell in Love and Went to Join the War. I loved every moment of this all-too-short book (a very fast 200 pages). It’s exactly what a memoir should be: entertaining, thoughtful, smart, funny, self-reflective, and even self-critical, with exactly the right kind of self-absorption, the kind that manages to say interesting things about the writer but also about a whole lot more. It tells the story of how during her freshman year in college in the 1980s Unferth met and fell in love with George, an unusual young man, a Christian with counter-cultural leanings. The two of them dropped out of school to go to Central America and join the revolutions fomenting there.
The book is extremely well-written. I’ve been trying to put into words exactly what I like about its style, and it’s been hard. Somehow Unferth manages to say a lot more than just what’s on the page. Her sentences are short and simple, with hardly a word wasted. She’s great at moving towards a larger meaning, hinting at it, and then leaving you to take the final leap. I usually prefer a more maximalist, wordy style, but this version of minimalism worked for me because it managed to say more than it seemed to. The book is written in short chapters, sometimes only a page long, each telling a story or vignette or exploring an idea. It holds together as a coherent whole, but the short chapters give it a fractured feeling that somehow makes everything more believable. It’s not a seamless narrative, but instead the chapters offer glimpses of or angles into the story. It’s a method that doesn’t promise to fit everything together neatly, because such a thing is impossible.
Read the rest of the review at Of Books and Bicycles
The book is extremely well-written. I’ve been trying to put into words exactly what I like about its style, and it’s been hard. Somehow Unferth manages to say a lot more than just what’s on the page. Her sentences are short and simple, with hardly a word wasted. She’s great at moving towards a larger meaning, hinting at it, and then leaving you to take the final leap. I usually prefer a more maximalist, wordy style, but this version of minimalism worked for me because it managed to say more than it seemed to. The book is written in short chapters, sometimes only a page long, each telling a story or vignette or exploring an idea. It holds together as a coherent whole, but the short chapters give it a fractured feeling that somehow makes everything more believable. It’s not a seamless narrative, but instead the chapters offer glimpses of or angles into the story. It’s a method that doesn’t promise to fit everything together neatly, because such a thing is impossible.
Read the rest of the review at Of Books and Bicycles
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