Peacekeeping

by Mischa Berlinski

The Daring, Eagerly Anticipated Second Novel By The National Book Award–Nominated Author Of Fieldwork

Mischa Berlinski’s first novel, Fieldwork, was published in 2007 to rave reviews—Hilary Mantel called it “a quirky, often brilliant debut” and Stephen King said it was “a story that cooks like a mother”—and it was a finalist for the National Book Award. Now Berlinski returns with Peacekeeping, an equally enthralling story of love, politics, and death in the world’s most intriguing country: Haiti.

When Terry White, a former deputy sheriff and a failed politician, goes broke in the 2007–2008 financial crisis, he takes a job working for the UN, helping to train the Haitian police. He’s sent to the remote town of Jérémie, where there are more coffin makers than restaurants, more donkeys than cars, and the dirt roads all slope down sooner or later to the postcard sea. Terry is swept up in the town’s complex politics when he befriends an earnest, reforming American-educated judge. Soon he convinces the judge to oppose the corrupt but charismatic Sénateur Maxim Bayard in an upcoming election. But when Terry falls in love with the judge’s wife, the electoral drama threatens to become a disaster.

Tense, atmospheric, tightly plotted, and surprisingly funny, Peacekeeping confirms Berlinski’s gifts as a storyteller. Like Fieldwork, it explores a part of the world that is as fascinating as it is misunderstood—and takes us into the depths of the human soul, where the thirst for power and the need for love can overrun judgment and morality.

Genres: Fiction, Literary Fiction, Contemporary, Novels, Literature, Audiobook, American

400 pages, Hardcover

First published January 5, 2016

About the author

Mischa Berlinski is the author of novels Fieldwork, a finalist for the National Book Award, and Peacekeeping. He has written for the New York Review of Books about Haitian politics, has tried to buy a zombie for Men's Journal, and investigated a woman who married a snake for Harper's Magazine. His writing has appeared in the Best American Essays and the Best American Travel Writing.

He is the recipient of a Whiting Writers' Award and the American Academy of Arts and Letters' Addison M. Metcalf Award.

Reviews

[Left Coast Justin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sweeping epics aren't very popular these days, perhaps because modern readers prefer stories that can be neatly wrapped up, point made, verdict rendered, beliefs confirmed. Although this book does indeed tie off all the plotlines neatly and credibly, the people inside the book -- people you will come to regard as friends -- still have the remainders of their lives to lead. The pain, the joy, the guilt, the messiness we encounter on a daily basis is a constant presence in this story, and it feels very, very much like real life. This is John Irving with a defter touch, Dickens with a more finely-tuned sense of morality.

But it's funny, damn it, even if the events it describes are rather grim. People compare Berlinski to Dickens, to Irving, to Graham Greene, but none of those writers had an amusing bone in their bodies. This book will have you grinning like a guilty dog all the way through.

The dirt landing strip was carved into the fields of sugarcane and bananas like a scar. The Jeremie airport itself was a one-room cement hut. A sign reading BIENVENUE A JEREMIE. LA CITE DES POETES. Seeing that sign had been the first hint that I would love this place.

The author not only understands the lure of faraway, but fully understands marriage as well:

"Just after Terry got the offer to come here, he got another offer," she said. "Head of security at a shopping mall in Tennessee. And I thought, Great, now he doesn't have to go to Haiti. We went up there to visit. I liked the way we could go out at night, the shopping, the music. It was a good salary, good hours for Terry, good for me, everything good. But Terry said he wasn't going. We had a big fight. He said, 'I don't want to spend my life defending The Gap and Zara,' and I said, 'Honey, those places are essential to my way of life.'

This book has good guys and bad guys, and noble women and vicious women, but the bad guys all have their seductive sides and the noble women can spit fire on occasion. You get the idea. It has music (and noise), it has food (and hunger)..

First stop was always the commissary, where a dozen National Police were lounging in the morning sun. They were playing dominoes and getting their shoes shined. Every now and again they would impound a stolen goat or pig, and these animals were tethered out front, munching on the dying crabgrass. When the animals got big enough, the National Police would barbeque the evidence.

Drop a sluice in the river of life, wash away the mud and pebbles. Pick the shiny gold flakes out of the bottom of the pan, put them on paper and call it Peacekeeping. Thanks, Mischa Berlinski.

[Dave Marsland · Rating 5 out of 5]

Degagé pa peché
‘Getting by isn’t a sin’
-CREOLE PROVERB

One of my biggest beefs is the state of the roads where I live. It’s a metric by which you can judge the state of local government. After reading Peacekeeping I’ll stop grumbling because at least we have roads. In Haiti, where the book is set, roads are just a vehicle for politicians. Without roads Haiti can’t truly function as an economy. It’s not just roads that are needed and there’s a raft of international organisations willing to help.
"How many people do you know who have built a charitable hospital? In Haiti, I met three. Orphanages, latrines, and wells? I lost track. And because in Haiti you meet people like that all the time, it comes to seem normal, That’s why so many outsize schemes and megalomaniac ambitions were hatched in Haiti, because it’s a place where nobody ever says no”
Trying to help people out of the country’s geopolitical poverty trap, the UN and other agencies have good intentions, but it never plays out as it should. The Taiwanese Government donate a fire truck, but it’s rendered useless because of a lack of fuel. And water.
Complex and nuanced, Peacekeeping (like his first novel Fieldwork) demonstrates that Mischa Berlinski is a brilliant storyteller. He writes with foresight and authority.
Central to the story is promise of a road being built between Jérémie and Port-au-Prince, and the election that decides its fate. On one side there is Johel Célestin, an American educated lawyer and idealist. He intends to build the road. Opposing him is you Maxim Bayard (The Sénateur) a corrupt realist who has crushed plans to build a road for years. The eschewing election ends in tragedy. Things never change in Haiti. Part history lesson, part political thriller, it’s intelligent, ambitious and deceptively funny. Mischa Berlinski has written another extraordinary novel.

[Hannah · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 Stars - Meh…

This book gives the illusion of being a knockout, from its cover, jacket description, to its organization, but this is an excellent case of going deeper than the surface.

Peacekeeping is set in Haiti and attempts to combine elements of local and international politics, development, economics, and culture to tell a story of local elections and corruption and affairs. That sentence was a mess and that’s because the description on the back of the book is so misleading. It takes about two sections (so roughly 100 pages) to even start with what the back of the book describes (Terry White, UNPOLS, and the judge). I felt, and still feel, misled by the description.

I found the story itself a bit blah and lacking. The first two parts are a lot of getting to know characters (less interesting, as I will explain) and getting to know the setting, Haiti (which is more interesting because I haven’t read many books set in the Caribbean). I understand that it’s important to know your characters and setting, but it’s such a slow build to get to the meat of the story that I don’t know if it fits. The first two sections feel like they are a part of a totally different book.

Part three was the most captivating. I liked reading about how UNPOL works and the more nitty-gritty of that on a macro and micro level and the political and cultural nuances. Also in the third part, there is a section where the narrator talks about all these development projects (funded by the EU, CARE, USAID, UNESCO) that are supposed to help Haiti, yet remain in limbo. As someone who’s spent a considerable amount of time in developing countries (albeit in Eastern Europe and not in the Caribbean) I found that interesting. Firstly it’s interesting because from my EE experience, development projects, while they hit bumps and local bureaucracy, usually get going. Secondly, I started to wonder if Haiti’s slow development was in part because its people aren’t white… just a thought.

I made zero connections to the characters and I found them each irritating in their own way. I don’t necessarily hate them, but I don’t necessarily like them. I can see how, for instance, Terry White is doing what he thinks is right and I respect that, but there is this distance or barrier between me and the characters that I can’t quite seem to get over. Something I couldn’t quite get over with Terry was his savior complex white savior complex. His attitude and motivations aren’t labeled like that at all, not even hinted at that, but it just seems so obvious. He meddles in everything and doesn’t think about the ramifications for the people who actually have to live with the consequences once he’s done. He can go back to the U.S. but Haiti is home to many of the other characters. I felt uncomfortable by his blindness.

Berlinski’s writing is okay. It’s nothing amazing and it’s not terrible. I think, in parts, it could have been edited better.

Do I recommend this one? No, I’d advise you skip it and maybe try a book set in the Caribbean that’s written by an actual Caribbean writer. No offense to Berlinski, but this one wasn’t good.

[David Lutes · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have yet to really enjoy a novel set in the Caribbean. Admittedly, my experience is limited, but I tend to find Caribbean novels nothing more than an expose of "look how abjectly awful it is here... just look." With this prejudice in full effect, I entered Peacekeeping, and finally found a book that adds quite a bit more to this formula. Here we get theories for why Haiti is so impoverished and run down (many keep trying to help but ultimately leave Haiti worse off once their conscience is clear from their good deeds) and the narrator keeps reminding us how beautiful it is. Peacekeeping succeeds in being a novel of relationships. Haiti is a rough setting, but it is simply the backdrop for the human stories of love, power, redemption, and life. And all of this is told with some amazing prose from Berlinski. He balances humor and gravity and gives it to us in some well crafted sentences.

[jo · Rating 5 out of 5]

i liked this so much. if you miss graham greene and wonder who could do graham greene in the 2000s, this is it. a little touch of noir detachment, too. perfect. if you listen to the audiobook, you get the added delight of ben williams, who makes this the best audiobook of my audiolistening life to date. too bad the man has recorded only two books!

[Jill · Rating 4 out of 5]

The unnamed narrator of Peacekeeping – perhaps a stand-in for Mischa Berlinski himself – at one point muses, “…I learned in Haiti that stories, if not a necessity, are not a luxury either. Only the rich and the lucky can afford to live without stories, for without stories, as every Haitian peasant knows, life is all just things that happen to you, and you are just something that happens in the lives of others.”

I quote that passage because above all else, Peacekeeping is a story and the story focuses on the poorest country in the Western hemisphere – Haiti. There are, of course, fleshed-out characters. But each of them contributes to the Haitian tapestry, particularly focusing on the remote coastal town of Jeremie – a town that does not have a road and therefore, does not have a lifeline.

There is Terry White, a U.N. policeman who has lost at the game of life back in Florida and now has grasped a second chance to reboot himself. Eventually, he is drawn to a charismatic district judge named Johel Celestin, who spent years in the U.S. after escaping the Duvalier regime and who has come back finely sensitized to the injustice and poverty that face his countrymen. He is married to a beautiful green-eyed and ebony-skinned seductress. When an opportunity arises to topple the entrenched and morally corrupt senator, Maxim Bayard, Johel grabs it – along with Terry to help lead him forward.

The author, I’ve read, actually lived in Haiti and it shows. His knowledge of a country that lives and survives on stories – one’s own story and the story of a land – comes across loud and clear. The themes that run through this book are as old as mankind itself: the insatiable quest for love and power, the varying nuances of morality, the ways we support and betray each other.

In this election year – I’m reading this just two months before the 2016 election – the shenanigans and drama of the electoral contest are particularly timely and fascinating. If there is a flaw in this novel, it’s that Berlinski eventually chooses to focus more on the machinations of electoral events as opposed to the characters; one senses that he is using his knowledge a little too intensely and for pages, the book almost reads like non-fiction (although it is, fiction or perhaps gussied-up stories.)

“The tragedy of peacekeeping,” Berlinski writes. “…was that you are inevitably on the wrong side of someone who is in the right. Perhaps, he thought that was the tragedy of life.” By interpreting what peacekeeping means – in all its nuances – Berlinki has written a fine novel indeed.

[William Koon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Peacekeeping is a near perfect novel. Berlinski is the whole package. He has the ideas. He has the language. He has the form.

I doubt you can find a finer treatise on Haiti than this “fictionalized” version of recent history. He is as blunt about the NGO’s as is Paul Theroux. He shows the people are as corrupt as the government and its politicians. His use of a martyred boy being paraded around and then the crowd deciding it was hungry and going to a barbeque sets a new bar of contemporary life with both its tragedy and its absurdity.

If we think that we are living in a corrupt world of social media and reality shows, all we have to do is dip into this world to know that evil is indeed banal and aphasic.

Berlinski extirpates the charity of the world and those who suck it all in. And one would think that his iniquitous hammering would flatten the reader into submission and sorrow. But like Camus in The Stranger, we are better people for having lived with the characters and gone through the events of his book.

Plus it’s a damned fine murder mystery.

[Mainlinebooker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mischa Berlinski is such a talented writer..His latest, Peacekeeping, is so perfectly drawn, with vivid characters, spot on description of Haiti, and a beautiful swirl of pathos and humor. The story is told through the eyes of a journalist who becomes friend with a former policeman turned UN enforcer who hopes to finally make a difference somewhere and to himself. There is also his wife, a real estate agent crushed by the US markets, an American educated Haitian judge and his wife who becomes an object of obsession for both men. However, this description is too simplistic to describe the depth and breadth of this terrific work. Politics,morality,race,religion, and love all play a part in this terrific act. It's one act you need to make your own~!

[Joshua Buhs · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's me, not you (Mischa).

I just couldn't get into it.

Peacekeeping is Berlinski's follow-up (finally) to his debut, "Fieldwork." There are obvious similarities--both books are set in what are for his American readers distant locations--Fieldwork in southeast Asia, this one in Haiti. Both deal with the intricacies of the local cultures there. And both are fascinated by the workings of stories, how they are passed down and passed around, how they hold groups together but are also their undoings.

But where Fieldwork, in my opinion, came up with a clever way to make the very many stories Berlinski wanted to tell gel into a cohesive novel, the stories here feel ad hoc. I am loathe to guess what goes on in an author's mind, and Berlinski had a lot of time to figure out what he wanted to do with this book, but from my perspective, it doesn't seem that he ever reached a real conclusion. Indeed, I think he may have wanted to write something else--I realize this is presumptuous--quite possibly a non-fiction book about Haiti.

Because lots of the book reads as though it is meant to be non-fiction, chapters opening with long discussions of Haiti's history or politics or culture. There are even footnotes, which seems odd in what is presented as a first-person account of a run-in with some unusual expatriates and minor Haitian officials.

Otherwise, this is a story of love and betrayal set amid the corruption of Haitian politics and what seems like the cynicism of international do-gooders. (There are a few genuine believers one of them, despite initial appearances, the character our unnamed narrator most closely follows, Nick Caraway to Jay Gatsby.) Berlinski does a fine enough job capturing the very many conflicting imperatives of the institutions, and the way corruption is baked into the cake of doing things: all the people here want is to build a road, and it is a major undertaking.

Otherwise, though, the story never came to life for me. The characters always seemed too much like characters; the language runs more blue than in Berlinski's first book, and it felt forced. The structure of the novel was overly repetitive, especially towards the beginning and perhaps too classic in composition: the opening chapter made everything that came afterward seem fated--there was none of the discovery and surprise that marked "Fieldwork." There were the disappointingly expected references to voodoo, in its various forms.

Besides which, these colonial adventures are a harder thing to write now. Part of the problem is the colonialism, of course, and that the book i mostly told from the perspective of the colonialists. Part of the problem is that we're already cynical of the whole endeavor. But a bigger part of the problem is the writers who have come before, Conrad and Green; the latter seems especially to have influenced the book, and is referenced at least once that I noticed. There's also Didion's, The Last Thing He wanted, which was simultaneously the same type of book--a romance amid nefarious colonial shenanigans--and a deconstruction of just that kind of story.

For all that, Berlinski is a good writer. He knows how to put words into sentences, and sentences into paragraphs that sing. He has an astute eye for telling details. He has a comic sense which serves him well, capturing the absurdity of so much of life, without reducing life to the absurd: there's a delicate mixture of the tragic and comic in so many of his set pieces. If the reader just wants to soak into the various stories here, treating them as vignettes, that's probably the best way to approach this book, a collection of fractured fables about one of America's less-cared-about but of empire building. And fable is the word, because what counts in them is the structure and theme, less so the characters: they are modes of teaching, though the lessons are not usually straightforward. Perhaps this is another reason it feels as though the book wants to be non-fiction.

To be honest, I also felt ambivalent about "Fieldwork" when I first finished it, but that book has haunted me these many years since I read it. Perhaps the same will be true of "Peacekeeping," too. But for now, it just felt unsatisfying.

[Christine Zibas · Rating 5 out of 5]

For me, there were two possible turn-offs to this novel before I even began -- the book jacket and its subject matter, Haiti. Design efforts aside, the question of whether a novel about a country so frustratingly poor and beset by so many problems could be an interesting and not just depressing read was roundly answered by Author Mischa Berlinski. Not only could it be interesting, it was totally engrossing.

Having never read Berlinski before, I came with no set expectations about the writing, but I was happily surprised to find a writer who can not only tell a fascinating story, but do so within the context of a genuinely (to Americans, anyway) perplexing country. One of my favorite quotes of the book comes late, but seems to sum up the depth of the situation:

"But I learned in Haiti that stories, if not a necessity, are not a luxury either. Only the rich and the lucky can afford to live without stories, for without stories, as every Haitian peasant knows, life is all just things that happen to you, and you are just something that happens in the lives of others."

Really isn't that why literature is so powerful? Isn't that why we are all readers? Isn't that how and why we form friendships -- to tell each other stories of ourselves and our lives?

That quote, so profound, is alone worth the price of reading the book. There is much more, however, to "Peacekeeping," not to mention an ending with a twist that I, for one, didn't see coming. This is a book of power, of heartbreak, of longing, of wanting to do good in a world that seems nearly impossible to do good in.

It's likely not the story of your life, but it's the story of all our lives. Don't miss it.


This book was a GoodReads giveaway.

[Robin Newbold · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read Mischa Berlinski's Fieldwork, which won a first novel award in the US. His account of missionaries in northern Thailand was fascinating. The author really is great at evoking a place and its people, with Peacekeeping similarly entrancing. This time it is Haiti and the main protagonist, Terry, is a down on his luck American working for the UN.

I thought when I read Berlinski's first book there were shades of Graham Greene and again it comes to the fore here. His tackling of the themes of religion, politics and love, often unrequited, are certainly those that Greene delved into and of course he wrote The Comedians, which was also set in Haiti. Maybe this is a nod from Berlinski to the master.

Nevertheless, the author is his own man and again manages to deliver an intricate, finely plotted and satisfying novel. We enter a world of intrigue where the local judge Terry is detailed to protect turns to politics to upset the established order and get a road built - no mean feat in Haiti apparently. Unfortunately for the judge, Terry steps on his toes in more ways than one and a tangled web is weaved. Berlinski manages to keep the reader hooked as relationships unravel, with plenty of shocks, in what is an earth-shaking denouement.

[Candace · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5

I loved Mischa Berlinski's earlier "Fieldwork," which might be why I was a little let down by "Peacekeeping." It's good, but lacks the depth of discovery about Thai beliefs I got from "Fieldwork." "Peacekeeping" is a story of people in a difficult country, who fall in love with the wrong people and try to make one simple change--in this case, a road from the town of Jeremie to Port au Prince.

The existing road has been out of commission for years, and the result is that without a lot of time and a serious four wheel drive vehicle, you are stuck. The people of Jeremie don't have access to cars, there are no busses and it is several days to walk. This means that they cannot get seeds to grow any food, can't sell anything they might have to make any money, and are suffering from the effects of eating a nearly all fruit diet. An American-educated judge runs for office to get a road built, and thus stirs up the delicate politics of rural Haiti.

Reading about a place as dysfunctional as Haiti is always fascinating and frustrating at the same time. You wonder why people don't have more initiative but you see what happens to those who do. Interesting reading.

[Campbell Andrews · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm not sure what book I wanted Mr. Berlinski to write after Fieldwork, which I consider to be a masterwork. On reading his second book, I know I'm only sure I wanted him to write faster.

As a novelist he's an extraordinary anthropologist, and (so far) has a knack for narrating stories that aren't his. Peacekeeping meanders quite a bit, for the first 2/3 made up mostly of nested stories that don't quite coalesce.... until they do. For the reader it can be a rough ride- the prose is fine (and usually better than fine), but the narrative lurches -but that too, finally, feels fitting for what emerges as a tableau of an entire nation.

I myself have lived in an American protectorate, and the otherworldliness and playground for we blans that Mr. Berlinski captures of Haiti rings very true. More than that, ultimately he encounters and depicts the country on her own terms and never succumbs to the temptation of solving or explaining her.

Mischa Berlinski's two novels do the kind of work that exemplifies the best of fiction.

[Aurina · Rating 5 out of 5]

I started reading Peacekeeping the day I finished reading the author’s other book, Fieldwork, but my experience with both books felt different. While Fieldwork was propulsive and laugh-out-loud funny, Peacekeeping was more of a slow burn, the plot taking its time to unfurl. And despite not being sure where the book was headed in the first few chapters, I couldn’t put it down.

Both of Berlinki’s books display an incredible talent in storytelling, a sharp curiosity about human beings, minor characters imbued with rich, entertaining backstories. Like in Fieldwork, the first person narrator plays no role in the story other than being an observer, someone who stumbles upon the plot. Once again, the writing style seems like it’s from a bygone era, Graham Greene being the obvious comparison. The author is clearly knowledgeable about Haiti and there are passages of observations that seem more journalistic than novelistic.

The political drama at the heart of the eventually unfurled plot is gripping. What I found most masterful was Berlinski’s ability to write compassionately about the dire state of Haitian politics without veering into the overwrought or maudlin. It is testament to his talents that he paints such a clear picture of Haiti’s abject state without ever sounding patronizing or essentializing.

There are parts where the writing gets a bit too indulgent for my liking, the metaphors too thick. The pace flags towards the end a bit but recovers enough that it didn’t mar my reading experience.

Nadia gains complexity: can we forgive her moral transgressions because of her multiple tragedies? In this, she reminded me very much of Nina, from The Americans, the latter of course, meeting a punishing end.

Maybe the best way to describe how this book made me feel is this: I found myself so immersed in the story that for a split fuzzy second I believed the ambulance sirens outside my window were coming from the book. I had to pause to shake the dread off.

[Rosemary · Rating 4 out of 5]

The setting is Haiti. The story is filled with richly defined and flawed characters. I liked and disliked and liked again most of them. The Haitian culture, food and politics all figure prominently. I would give this book 4 and a half stars if I knew how!

[Nancy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reading this book was a complex experience: interesting, engrossing, frustrating and exploratory.
Berlinski writes of Haiti in such detail that the reader is immersed in its challenges, its (seemingly) placid acceptance of poverty, and the futility of the few forward-thinking souls that try to effect change.

Although Peacekeeping is a novel, it feels like an endless magazine serial that holds out hope for change in one week's episode and dashes all dreams in the next. I felt like Berlinski was offering a candid view of the country---perhaps a snapshot in time--but I found myself restless with the pace of the book. No doubt, restless like the citizens of a country eager for change, but realizing consistent stagnation and corruption.

Peacekeeping may deserve more praise than I am offering, but I have just escaped the bondage of the story and am unable to say "I really liked the experience." What I can say is that it felt like I spent a decade in Haiti, toiling in a bureaucratic vineyard and never making a jug of decent wine. Perhaps that was the author's intent, and if so, I hope these comments are satisfying.

I received an advance copy of the book from Netgalley in return for my candid comments.

[Rebecca McPhedran · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting, although disjointed read. There is a nameless narrator, who informs the reader of Haitian politics, through the voices of the characters he meets in Haiti while writing a book. Haiti is a heartbreaking country full of the kindest, poorest, most resilient people in the entire world. The poverty is staggering and heartbreaking. There is so much corruption, and so many middle men that Haitian people are literally starving to death. Many places are only accessible by walking or riding a donkey. There are few roads. Because there is a lack of infrastructure and therefore, roads, trade is very limited.
This fictional account tells the story of Terry White, who is sent to Haiti to help train peacekeepers. He befriends a judge, and persuades him to run for senator, against the incumbent Maxim Bayard. The plot moves at a steady pace. At times you root for the Judge. But I felt disconnected. The story felt disjointed. And there were no real, honest characters that I could root for.

[Carolyn Crocker · Rating 5 out of 5]

This thoughtful novel, begins in Haiti, two years before the quake, when a group of UN staff, expats and locals coalesce around an American-educated judge and his wife, to make a difference in the upcoming elections. The natural beauty, the economic mess, the interplay of greed, superstition, poverty as seen by the expat novelist narrator, provoke hope, despair, humor and pathos, and most of all, questions. A fascinating and beautiful book.

'... stories, if not a necessity, are not a luxury either. Only the rich and the lucky can afford to live without stories, for without stories, as every Haitian peasant knows, life is all just things that happen to you, and you are just something that happens in the lives of others... a good story [is] the only realm in our existence where for every "Why?" there exists a commensurate "Because...". Those two words, "why?" and "because," might be the best thing our species has going for it.' p. 371

[Carol · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'll be recommending this book highly for readers of popular fiction once it's in paper. Berlinki is a great storyteller and a great anthropologist and the book never felt too long, as so much fiction often does. I learned a lot about Haiti while being thoroughly entertained by this clear-eyed humanist. I would have given it 5 stars but for the neglect of just how devastating U.S. trade and foreign policy has actually been for the Haitian people. The trade rule that rice must be imported, for instance, cut the knees off subsistence rice farming there, etc. etc. etc. The U.S. role in supporting the Duvaliers and the U.S. role in the ousting of Aristide are well documented, but sadly they aren't
mentioned here. Berlinski does mention CIA machinations obliquely but the real impact of U.S. interference in Haitian affairs over the years is a serious omission in an otherwise thoroughly wonderful book.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

While plenty has been written, fiction and nonfiction, about Haiti's political disgraces, natural disasters, cultural enigmas and entrenched dysfunction, Mischa Berlinski's new novel stands out for doing far more than dramatizing news headlines about the beleaguered Caribbean nation.

On its surface, "Peacekeeping" is about international intervention in Haiti. It also would be tidy to sum up his debut, "Fieldwork," a finalist for the National Book Award, as a novel about anthropological studies in Thailand. Neither description really covers the ways in which Berlinski probes the failures of language when stories told by foreigners converge with stories told by locals.

Read more from my review for AP here: http://apne.ws/1QJm2iu

[Robert Wechsler]

After how special Berlinski's Fieldwork was, I had been looking forward to his delayed second novel for at least a year. I was sad to find myself disappointed with it. There’s nothing wrong with it — it’s a well-written traditional drama about individuals drawn to a poor land for many reasons — but it lacks the specialness that made Fieldwork one of the best mainstream novels I’ve read in the last ten years. About a quarter of the way into Peacekeeping, I found that I wasn’t interested enough to continue, with all the books I want to read.

[Maya · Rating 4 out of 5]

I oscillated between 3 and 4 stars. Great book, worth reading. Parts of the prose were a bit slow, and the female characters were somewhat weak. I think the biggest pet peeve I had is how am I supposed to trust the emotional intelligence of a male speaker/narrative voice who does not ever give any details or even a name to his own wife??? The gender issues between characters throughout the book was really problematic for me.

Anyway, the book was very good, and had some beautiful prose and a really interesting plot. The story is invigorating and the twists and turns kept me in. Would recommend despite the complaints!

[Kathleen Gray · Rating 4 out of 5]

well written in a journalistic style, this is a novel of the difficulties involved in international assistance missions. Much of it is discouraging but there are glimmers of hope- and you should hold on to those. Berlinski does a good job with his characters; I sense he's met and dealt with them in real life. Thanks to NETGALLEY for the ARC. I suspect this won't get as wide readership as it deserves. You will like this if you are interested in Haiti, in the work of the international community, or humanity in general. Thumbs up!

[Matt Sully · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are things about this book that I question: the MC's almost ghost-like observation of the Haitian world, his true participation in events lacking; The merenque-style storytelling, forward and back, forward and back.
However, and this is a strong however, these issues were minor distractions from an overall well-told story, interesting characters with wonderully interlaced dynamics, a rich and curious world, and generally great writing.
I recommend this book, and am thrilled to seek out Berlinski's first novel, Fieldwork.

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Books by Berlinski are fascinating to me. This is his second, and I also loved his first one. I can't say there was much of a plot, but the background of Haiti made up for that. Local politics, the UN, and a writer not doing much writing but snooping (kind of) make up the characters.
Berlinski assumes his readers are highly literate and intelligent - or maybe that's his trick, he makes you THINK you are highly literate and smart thru his writing. And who doesn't like that?

[Javelin Hands · Rating 3 out of 5]

Berlinski's second novel, Peacekeeping, is good. Not exemplary, but good. This may be a tepid and bland assessment, but Berlinkski’s talent belies a greater novel lurks in the corners of this young author’s future.

http://www.runspotrun.com/book-review...

[Linda Davidson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well written book about people and politics in Haiti. Having been to Haiti twice, I am very interested in the culture, customs and the plight of the people. While I wouldn't say this was a "page turner", I really enjoyed the character descriptions and the overview of life in Haiti.

[Ken · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent book. He really captures Haiti- the political realities and the MINUSTAH presence. Loved it

[Deepak K · Rating 4 out of 5]

Peacekeeping is a glimpse of what Haiti feels like from the perspective of a foreign journalist. The author Mischa Berlinski lived in Haiti and weaved his experiences into a tale, dealing with Haitian poverty and politics, narrating the tale with a calculated distance as opposed to how the tale would have been if narrated by a native.

Jérémie on Haiti's southwest coast is the place where the author has come to live. He befriends the American Terry White and his wife Kay, who had ironically come to Haiti for its economic opportunities, after they went broke back home. Then there is the judge Johel Celestin, his wife Nadia and a host of other minor characters who populate this book.

The office of government is held by Sénateur Maxim Bayard, a charismatic socialist who has clearly not done enough to the Haitian people, chief among them is the lack of road to connect Jérémie with the capital Port au Prince. He has been winning uncontested in the past years, a story about it goes like this.
Every election day, the story went, the Sénateur sent his goons around to the polling stations to offer the poll workers a cold drink, thanking them for their labors. Inside the ice chest, on a bed of ice, there’s nothing but human fingers and bottles of Coke, all those fingers stained with the indelible ink which identifies a voting citizen—presumably someone who had voted for the Sénateur’s opponent. After that, the poll workers often found their way to slip a ballot or two the Sénateur’s way.

Judge Johel Célestin decides to challenge the Senateur in an upcoming election. He enjoys popular support and is a strong supporter of the road.
Mangoes ! An export fruit ! Johel's voice was sincere, eager, persuasive. A mango tree is for a small peasant like a little money machine; a mango tree and a road are school fees for your child; a mango tree and a road, and your wife has prenatal care; a mango tree and a road is a concrete cistern to gather rainwater, and that means you're not drinking ditchwater. A mango tree without a road is a pile of fruit; a mango tree without a road is a swollen belly; a mango tree without a road is timber. And what happens to the mango tree now? They fall to the ground and rot - the pigs eat the mangoes and the kids go hungry. And why is that? Because there is no road. Farmers nowadays were cutting down these trees to make charcoal, the only thing you could transport to market in Port-au-Prince. Things didn't change around here, soon the hills would be denuded, the topsoil washed away, and the last place in Haiti still covered in thick forest would be, like the rest of Haiti, nothing but barren hillside.

The events leading to the election and how it unfolds, not to mention the earthquake that sort of tidies up the conflicts, forms the rest of the book. An interesting non-fiction fiction work.

[Sandie · Rating 4 out of 5]

The year is 2008 and the location is Haiti. The narrator is a journalist who is temporarily living there with his wife. He looks around for other Americans to pass time with and he meets Terry White. Terry is a former policeman, a homicide detective from Florida. He and his wife, Kay, suffered financial issues in the downturn of 2008 and he has signed up with the United Nations peacekeeping force, composed of security professionals from around the globe who are in Haiti to keep the peace during troubled times and to teach the Haitian policemen their techniques.

Terry isn't thrilled to be there. He is living alone, with Kay coming down for periodic visits. He ends up becoming pretty much a permanent bodyguard to a local judge who was educated in the United States. Johel Celestin has a little influence as a local judge but he longs to do more for his countrymen. He has a vision of building a road from the capital to his impoverished area. There is almost no trade and fresh food is difficult to come by without a reliable means of transportation. It depresses the economy as farmers can't raise crops they have no way of transporting to sell, nor can fishermen make a living. He decides in order to get his road built he will run for the office of Senateur. The current occupant of the position, Maxim Bayard, is old and Johel senses he might be able to be defeated.

Political campaigns are not easy in Haiti. The voting process is full of corruption with voters often selling their votes to both sides. Many just sign in at the voting place and leave a blank ballot for the poll workers to fill out. There are influential men who can promise entire villages to be counted for one side or the other. Can a newcomer fight against this established dominance? Even worse than the political fight Johel is in, he has a more personal issue. Terry White has fallen in love with his wife, Nadia, and they are having an affair. The journalist observes all these conflicts and watches to see what the outcome will be.

Mischa Berlinski's acute observations of personal and political conflict read like the headlines from the latest edition of the newspaper. He immerses the reader in a world most have never considered and finds a way to make this political contest in a remote area relevant. He explores the relationship between men and women and between men with their friends and the sudden explosions that can occur when lust and love come between them. This book is recommended for readers of literary fiction.