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Ricochet
When three colleagues die violently during a single wartime election day in Central America, two female journalists, best friends, are hurled into a torrent of change in their personal and professional lives and in their relationship with each other. The author, bedeviled by stress and feelings of abandonment, hangs on by her fingernails to reporting while her dear friend "just can't take another picture of a dead body" and throws herself into teaching photography to children who live in a garbage dump. Big questions quietly roil their lives - what is our responsibility to history? To individuals? - until, unexpectedly, they approach an answer together when a child from the dump goes missing.
Mary Jo McConahay is the author of Maya Roads, One Woman's Journey Among the People of the Rainforest. She is an award-winning journalist and documentary filmmaker whose coverage of war, politics, and international justice issues over three decades has appeared in Time, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, Vogue, Rolling Stone, and dozens of other newspapers and magazines. Also a believer in writing "deep travel", weaving local history and voices into narrative, she is the current Lowell Thomas Travel Journalist of the Year, a distinction considered equivalent to the Pulitzer Prize in the genre. Maya Roads' awards include the Northern California Book Award for Best Nonfiction Book, National Geographic Traveler Book of the Month, Society of American Travel Writers Grand Award, Independent Publisher's Award for Best Travel Essay Book, Los Angeles BookNews International Book Awards for Best New Nonfiction Book, Best Travel Essay Book, and Best Memoir/Autobiography.
This is a short audiobook originally published as an ebook by Shebooks - high quality fiction, memoir, and journalism for women, by women.
Mary Jo McConahay is the author of Maya Roads, One Woman's Journey Among the People of the Rainforest. She is an award-winning journalist and documentary filmmaker whose coverage of war, politics, and international justice issues over three decades has appeared in Time, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, Vogue, Rolling Stone, and dozens of other newspapers and magazines. Also a believer in writing "deep travel", weaving local history and voices into narrative, she is the current Lowell Thomas Travel Journalist of the Year, a distinction considered equivalent to the Pulitzer Prize in the genre. Maya Roads' awards include the Northern California Book Award for Best Nonfiction Book, National Geographic Traveler Book of the Month, Society of American Travel Writers Grand Award, Independent Publisher's Award for Best Travel Essay Book, Los Angeles BookNews International Book Awards for Best New Nonfiction Book, Best Travel Essay Book, and Best Memoir/Autobiography.
This is a short audiobook originally published as an ebook by Shebooks - high quality fiction, memoir, and journalism for women, by women.
- GenresJournalism
MP3 CD
First published May 18, 2014
2 people are currently reading
29 people want to read
About the author
Mary Jo McConahay
13 books21 followersMary Jo McConahay is the author of the exciting new non-fiction book on World War II in Latin America, The Tango War, The Struggle for the Hearts, Minds and Riches of Latin America During World War II, starred in reviews from Publishers' Weekly and Kirkus. She is author of Ricochet, Two Women War Reporters and a Friendship under Fire, and Maya Roads, One Woman's Journey among the People of the Rainforest. Maya Roads is a National Geographic Traveler Book of the Month, winner of the Northern California Book Award for Creative Nonfiction, three Independent Book Awards including best new nonfiction book, and named Best Travel Essay Book by the Independent Publishers Awards. McConahay has been named the Lowell Thomas Travel Journalist of the Year, considered equivalent to the Pulitzer Prize in the genre. A journalist, Mary Jo is also a documentary filmmaker.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
June 7, 2014
A long short story, a short novella, another interesting find from SheBooks. McConahay is an award winning journalist who spent many years covering the complicated wars of Central and Southern America, most particularly in this story in El Salvador. Her closest friend, Nancy, was a photo-journalist and they had a close camraderie in a field dominated by men. But one day, after particularly brutal fighting saw three other journalists killed during coverage of an election in El Salvador, Nancy had enough of the life. The story talks of the impact of that decision on Mary Jo and their friendship as well as their ongoing lives.
McConahay writes well.
She left a clear glass pitcher filled with ice
water next to the television set. I watched it perspire
into a puddle on the table, each drop announcing how the
routine of an international luxury hotel might be
maintained religiously while the population lived in fear,
even died violently a few feet from its doors. In all the
years I had covered El Salvador until then, over a
thousand days of generalized blackouts and sabotage, the
hotel's swimming pool always gleamed miraculously full
full of sparkling blue water. (loc 68)
And her heart and mind are worried by what she witnesses but she cannot do all that she hopes/wants/plans/dreams.
Journalists are blown off track in the smoke and rush
of wartime just as others are. The shame of it eats into
the bone. I have never been able to shake the guilt of
what I did not do. (loc 146)
In her case it is the follow up story on the civilians killed, the story never researched, never written.
There are more sections that I would love to include, but this is, after all a short story! I will say that I intend to check out her longer work Maya Roads: One Woman's Journey Among the People of the Rainforest. After reading this short sample, I'm quite sure I will like her longer journey.
An advance copy of this book was provided by the publisher through NetGalley for the purpose of review.
McConahay writes well.
She left a clear glass pitcher filled with ice
water next to the television set. I watched it perspire
into a puddle on the table, each drop announcing how the
routine of an international luxury hotel might be
maintained religiously while the population lived in fear,
even died violently a few feet from its doors. In all the
years I had covered El Salvador until then, over a
thousand days of generalized blackouts and sabotage, the
hotel's swimming pool always gleamed miraculously full
full of sparkling blue water. (loc 68)
And her heart and mind are worried by what she witnesses but she cannot do all that she hopes/wants/plans/dreams.
Journalists are blown off track in the smoke and rush
of wartime just as others are. The shame of it eats into
the bone. I have never been able to shake the guilt of
what I did not do. (loc 146)
In her case it is the follow up story on the civilians killed, the story never researched, never written.
There are more sections that I would love to include, but this is, after all a short story! I will say that I intend to check out her longer work Maya Roads: One Woman's Journey Among the People of the Rainforest. After reading this short sample, I'm quite sure I will like her longer journey.
An advance copy of this book was provided by the publisher through NetGalley for the purpose of review.
July 22, 2014
This is a beautifully written story about the experiences of a war journalist in Latin America, and her war-time friendship with a photo journalist. Ricochet is particularly fascinating as an examination of the role of journalists - required to witness suffering but unable to alleviate it directly.
One of this title's greatest strengths is its gorgeous prose - this quote, in particular, blew me away:
But while Ricochet is an excellent story, it didn’t really grab me. There are dramatic scenes that certainly might invoke strong emotions in some readers, but I never felt really engrossed.
Also, the length bothered me - only in the last few pages does the narrator mention that she has a daughter. The tension between her home life and the trauma she witnesses as a journalist would have been a very interesting exploration, and would have fit in very nicely with the rest of the story. It felt really unnatural for her to tack on some information about her own child at the end.
Ricochet is a decent read, but it could have been a bit longer, a bit better.
Thank you to NetGalley and SheBooks for providing me with a copy of this book in return for an honest review.
One of this title's greatest strengths is its gorgeous prose - this quote, in particular, blew me away:
But while Ricochet is an excellent story, it didn’t really grab me. There are dramatic scenes that certainly might invoke strong emotions in some readers, but I never felt really engrossed.
Also, the length bothered me - only in the last few pages does the narrator mention that she has a daughter. The tension between her home life and the trauma she witnesses as a journalist would have been a very interesting exploration, and would have fit in very nicely with the rest of the story. It felt really unnatural for her to tack on some information about her own child at the end.
Ricochet is a decent read, but it could have been a bit longer, a bit better.
Thank you to NetGalley and SheBooks for providing me with a copy of this book in return for an honest review.
August 20, 2014
"The plane banked over the surf, came in low over khaki sand, and hit the runway with a single bump, rolling to a stop under the familiar welcome sign..."
With that opening line, Mary Jo McConahay drops us into 1989 El Salvador and, in a tense, urgent narrative, propels us through the war ravaged streets of a Central America in utter turmoil. Many dramas and many themes unfold throughout the story. There's the two American women journalists, one working in words, the other in film, mired in the external war while fighting a war of their own for respect and validation. There are the innocent victims, the common people whose impoverished lives are made even more insufferable by the ongoing horrors of warring factions that have no concern for residual casualties. Corruption, yes, and political intrigue, but told from the human perspective, that of the people suffering or the observers of those who have suffered.
McConahay does an excellent job conveying the journalist perspective. We're there with her in the field. We understand the pressure to get the story and somehow put human emotion on a back burner because the emotion must find it's proper target in the reader. She tells us of the stories that must remain untold because her male colleagues just don't get it:
"Our colleagues, mostly men, seemed to be less interested in what happened to women and children caught in the landscape we covered. I remember exceptions , but that was the rule."
Then she gives us one of her own passages to illustrate her point:
"In a mountain town occupied by child soldiers, a girl of 14 wearing oversized fatigues held an AK-47 semiautomatic rifle, looking scared and defiant at once. Nancy’s angle caught the fragile white flower the girl wore in long, dark hair."
"Scared and defiant at once." The objective journalist must tell the story in the heart as well as the story in the street.
With all the admiration I have for this brave story, I frequently felt rushed and wished McConahay would spend a little more ink on transitions and reflections. She handled the latter very well when she permitted herself time:
"One of the babies whimpered inside its white swaddling, and the woman caressed it back into calm with the side of her chin. I could imagine them, four female souls huddling on a single hard bus seat for hours that morning, bumping their way to the capital. And only two on the return."
Perhaps with some distance and time to consider approach, this terse novella could be reissued as a book length memoir. We quickly come to care about Mary Jo and her photog friend Nancy. Even the most callus reader could tolerate a more prolonged view into the women's relationship.
This book perfectly captures the conundrum of Central America: the bravado, the hope, the tragedy, and the cynicism. There is something—probably that something that keeps the country's people putting one foot in front of the other—that offers a glimmer of hope for the future. It's that dying spark that says to us, "Perhaps if we endure a little longer, make a few more sacrifices, perhaps tomorrow we will prevail."
With that opening line, Mary Jo McConahay drops us into 1989 El Salvador and, in a tense, urgent narrative, propels us through the war ravaged streets of a Central America in utter turmoil. Many dramas and many themes unfold throughout the story. There's the two American women journalists, one working in words, the other in film, mired in the external war while fighting a war of their own for respect and validation. There are the innocent victims, the common people whose impoverished lives are made even more insufferable by the ongoing horrors of warring factions that have no concern for residual casualties. Corruption, yes, and political intrigue, but told from the human perspective, that of the people suffering or the observers of those who have suffered.
McConahay does an excellent job conveying the journalist perspective. We're there with her in the field. We understand the pressure to get the story and somehow put human emotion on a back burner because the emotion must find it's proper target in the reader. She tells us of the stories that must remain untold because her male colleagues just don't get it:
"Our colleagues, mostly men, seemed to be less interested in what happened to women and children caught in the landscape we covered. I remember exceptions , but that was the rule."
Then she gives us one of her own passages to illustrate her point:
"In a mountain town occupied by child soldiers, a girl of 14 wearing oversized fatigues held an AK-47 semiautomatic rifle, looking scared and defiant at once. Nancy’s angle caught the fragile white flower the girl wore in long, dark hair."
"Scared and defiant at once." The objective journalist must tell the story in the heart as well as the story in the street.
With all the admiration I have for this brave story, I frequently felt rushed and wished McConahay would spend a little more ink on transitions and reflections. She handled the latter very well when she permitted herself time:
"One of the babies whimpered inside its white swaddling, and the woman caressed it back into calm with the side of her chin. I could imagine them, four female souls huddling on a single hard bus seat for hours that morning, bumping their way to the capital. And only two on the return."
Perhaps with some distance and time to consider approach, this terse novella could be reissued as a book length memoir. We quickly come to care about Mary Jo and her photog friend Nancy. Even the most callus reader could tolerate a more prolonged view into the women's relationship.
This book perfectly captures the conundrum of Central America: the bravado, the hope, the tragedy, and the cynicism. There is something—probably that something that keeps the country's people putting one foot in front of the other—that offers a glimmer of hope for the future. It's that dying spark that says to us, "Perhaps if we endure a little longer, make a few more sacrifices, perhaps tomorrow we will prevail."
August 12, 2014
Loved it! Full disclosure: I knew both the women featured in this book pretty well from 1985 and beyond and like them enormously.
This is a well-written story about a friendship of two talented and adventurous American women confronting the tragedy of poverty and war in Guuatemala. It is also about the toll being a war journaist takes on every one of those journalists.
This is also an account of the deaths of three Salvadoran journalists on one election night in El Salvsdor, at the hands of the Salvadoran Army.
it is also about Guatemala. I visited Guatemala several times in those years. I was scared there -- more scared than when I was in neighboring El Salvador, where I lived and did human rights investigations. Guatemala's arbitrary murderousness is captured in this book. Despite Guatemala's great beauty, I avoided it whenever I could.
Starting in the late 1980s, we began to see a change in human rights patterns. When someone went missing in El Salvador, we got the ICRC to search jails. holding cells, and barracks. The missing people sometimes turned up alive. When someone went missing in Guatemala, families still primarily searched the morgues, the garbage dumps and by the sides of the roads where the bodies were tossed by death squads, i.e., members of the police and army working out of uniform..
This is a well-written story about a friendship of two talented and adventurous American women confronting the tragedy of poverty and war in Guuatemala. It is also about the toll being a war journaist takes on every one of those journalists.
This is also an account of the deaths of three Salvadoran journalists on one election night in El Salvsdor, at the hands of the Salvadoran Army.
it is also about Guatemala. I visited Guatemala several times in those years. I was scared there -- more scared than when I was in neighboring El Salvador, where I lived and did human rights investigations. Guatemala's arbitrary murderousness is captured in this book. Despite Guatemala's great beauty, I avoided it whenever I could.
Starting in the late 1980s, we began to see a change in human rights patterns. When someone went missing in El Salvador, we got the ICRC to search jails. holding cells, and barracks. The missing people sometimes turned up alive. When someone went missing in Guatemala, families still primarily searched the morgues, the garbage dumps and by the sides of the roads where the bodies were tossed by death squads, i.e., members of the police and army working out of uniform..
August 19, 2014
You know you have a great story in your hands when the fact that it is completely out of your normal genre of reads doesn't matter!
Ricochet, by Mary Jo McConahay, is powerfully written! A story of two war journalists whose friendship is tested when one decides to quit because she, "just can't take another picture of a dead body."
Seeing war and it's effects from a woman's perspective was a new experience for me. We usually hear about war from a males point of view. This was poignant and gripping.
I'm glad I took a chance with this. The question posed in the blurb is still weighing on me.
***This book was graciously given to me in exchange for a review, by Shebooks publishing via Netgalley***
Ricochet, by Mary Jo McConahay, is powerfully written! A story of two war journalists whose friendship is tested when one decides to quit because she, "just can't take another picture of a dead body."
"I left because I wanted to do something that would make a difference, even in one or two lives, when it didn't seem I was making any difference by taking pictures."
Seeing war and it's effects from a woman's perspective was a new experience for me. We usually hear about war from a males point of view. This was poignant and gripping.
"Journalism is not a job but a blood type, fate and identification...
I'm glad I took a chance with this. The question posed in the blurb is still weighing on me.
"What is our responsibility to history? To individuals?"
***This book was graciously given to me in exchange for a review, by Shebooks publishing via Netgalley***
July 29, 2014
This is the memoir of a woman reporter based in Central America during the Cold War and the turmoil in that area during the 1980s. She details her experiences and those of her best friend, a photographer. She relates the atrocities happening during that period and their reactions to the events.
This was really well written. She engages the reader and makes you really feel the emotion of seeing and experiencing not only the atrocities of war, but also the conditions of the local inhabitants.
This was really well written. She engages the reader and makes you really feel the emotion of seeing and experiencing not only the atrocities of war, but also the conditions of the local inhabitants.
July 24, 2014
Fantastic. Not just an examination of the lives of a reporter and photographer reporting on the war in El Salvador, but also an examination of friendship and the changes that can rock the foundations of friendship. Well-written and fascinating.
April 13, 2025
Two friends in a war zone
I enjoyed this account of two female journalists reporting from Central America, and their ensuing friendship. I’m amazed at how much I came to understand them in such a short memoir. I am motivated to read Mary Jo’s book on Latin America in WWII.
I enjoyed this account of two female journalists reporting from Central America, and their ensuing friendship. I’m amazed at how much I came to understand them in such a short memoir. I am motivated to read Mary Jo’s book on Latin America in WWII.
July 26, 2014
This is a wonderful story about friendship in time of war. It was very well written and will keep you from putting the book down. Truly wonderful.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews