Green Fires: Assault on Eden: A Novel of the Ecuadorian Rainforest

by Marnie Mueller

Green Fires is the story of Annie Saunders, a disillusioned Kennedy-era Peace Corps volunteer, returning to Ecuador, hoping to come to terms with her traumatic experiences there. What she finds instead is a menacing and mysterious trail which she determinedly follows—ever deeper into the jungle—uncovering a sinister secret of international dimensions.

318 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

I was born in the Tule Lake Japanese American High Security camp in Northern California during WWII to Caucasian parents who had gone there to work to try to make a terrible situation tolerable for the people incarcerated there.

In 1963, I answered President Kennedy's call to "ask not what you country can do for you, but ask what you can do for your country." The very day I entered the Peace Corps was the day he was assassinated. I spent two years in Guayaquil, Ecuador living and working in an urban barrio. When I returned to the United States I worked as a community organizer in Spanish Harlem in New York City. I later produced rock and folk concerts and city-wide festivals, and served as the Program Director of WBAI-FM an alternative radio station in New York City.

In the 1980s, I began to write and published many short stories, essays, and poems in literary magazines, anthologies, and commercial venues. And in 1994, I published my first novel, GREEN FIRES, set in the rain forest of Ecuador, which drew on some of my Peace Corps experience, as well as documented the first incursions of oil companies into the region.

My second novel, THE CLIMATE OF THE COUNTRY, is set in the Tule Lake Camp and is loosely based on my parents' experiences working there.

MY MOTHER'S ISLAND, my third book, takes place in a small working class community in Puerto Rico. Though a novel, it closely follows the real story of my mother's death there and how the neighbors came in to help me help her to die.

I've been fortunate in that my novels have garnered many awards and notices. Anyone interested in learning more can go to my website at marniemueller.com.

I'm currently working on a non-fiction book about my relationship with a Japanese American showgirl who was interned in Minidoka Camp in Idaho during World War II.

I live on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City with my husband, Fritz Mueller.

Reviews

[John Thorndike · Rating 5 out of 5]

Few books have swept me so completely into a foreign and difficult world. A beautiful world, at the same time: the Amazonian jungles of eastern Ecuador. The struggles of the native tribes there have been in the headlines since the Seventies and before —but here is a story behind the headlines, showing us how painful it has been for the Shuar and Achuar people, and how governments and oil companies have run hard over indigenous rights.

Some of the conflict unfolds on a political level, but most of Green Fires is an emotional exploration by the narrator, Annie, a woman who served in the early years of the Peace Corps, but who left Guayaquil bruised and disillusioned. Now, a few years later, she and her new husband have dropped into the jungle side of Ecuador, where they stumble on a raging, half-hidden conflict, and cope with their own personal struggles. Annie has much to work out with her new husband—and with an idealistic ex-Nazi who lives in the heart of the forest, in retreat from his home country and most of the modern world. Surrounding them all, ever-present, are the land’s native peoples, who face what looks like an impossible future.

Race, religion and culture are all explored in Green Fires. Mingo, a native who fights for the rights of the nomadic jungle dwellers, has a sharp eye on the modern world. He travels at times to Quito and Guayaquil, but when he does, “I feel less. You—white people—have too many things. You travel too fast. You have many inventions to make life easier. It is impossible for me to see you as inferior to me, to my earlier life in the forest. You are too many, too loud, too powerful.”

Mingo is a help to Annie, though it’s hard to say if she is any help to him. Mingo has the broader struggle, but Annie’s trials are close and personal. In the end, the book’s great triumph is how skillfully the author interweaves these two threads.

[Laura Castro · Rating 5 out of 5]

Green Fires was an excellent read. Set in 1969 Ecuador, the novel introduces a young American protagonist (who like Ms. Mueller is a former American Peace Corps activist) and an international cast of supporting characters. The setting is deeply imagined and rich in descriptive detail, drawing me in from the start. The plot, which eventually enmeshes us in life-and-death intrigue involving shadowy agents of an oil company with its eye on the rainforest, picks up a good deal of steam as the story progresses, and by half way through, I found the book hard to put down. In contrast to the previous two reviewers, I did not find certain events in the story to be detached from historical reality; though my research has not been exhaustive, I find reference to the use of napalm and white phosphorus against indigenous tribes in both Brazil and Peru. The characters have interesting inner conflicts and grew on me as their story unfolded. Without being polemical, the book forces us to confront some deep moral and political questions. The assault on the rainforest and its inhabitants is particularly relevant today.

[Elizabeth P · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting story that discusses peaceful action vs violent action against oppression. Although written from a white American perspective, it uncovers important ideological questions about imperialism and corruption. The narrator can be a bit annoyingly naive, and puts the people she serves in danger and then kinda abandons them which I found frustrating, but ultimately that's kind of how the peace corps works. Ultimately I gave it 3 stars because the narrator was kinda annoying (example: complaining about poor people asking her for money? Really? 🙄) and ultimately I don't think it's her story to tell. But on the other hand it's important that white people who go to Latin America understand their privilege and impact on the native peoples lives.

[Bruce McDonald · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book has a lot of good moments. The descriptions of the South American environment are rich and detailed. If character development were done as well it would have been a much better read. I thought I would really like it just because it involved Peace Corps and that is an interest of mine. That angle was woven into the story in a secondary, patched-in way that left a sour taste. Two, actually -- centered on the protagonist and on another person in the story.
The title and central focus of the story involves certain weapons being used against indigenous peoples which I could not find documented as fact, and several others in my book group came to the same conclusion. Since it seems to have been fictionalized for dramatic effect, it it wasn't true a lot of the story line loses credibility.
I enjoyed the book, and learned a lot about what it must be like in parts of Ecuador. Despite loose ends and dead ends in plot details, and the things I previously mentioned, the book is an admirable piece of work and is a good read. The writer is passionate about her subject and deals with some big concepts.

[Bonniecco cco · Rating 2 out of 5]

Marnie Mueller, the author, seems to love the Amazon region and have deep concern for the welfare of its indigenous peoples. Her nature descriptions - smells, colors of the water, breeze, sky - are excellent. I found the lead character a mix of neurotic and frivolous. She seems to lust after every man under 30 who crosses her path. Plotting has no basis in actual historical events so far as I can tell, and when the plot involves the use of napalm I expect some historical connection even if slight or disputed by historians. My short take - Mueller's descriptive ability and Dan Brown's plot development would make a very good writer of fiction. I cannot recommend this book. I have read worse, but not lately,

[diana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Set in an Ecuadorian, Amazon rainforest in 1969. The story is told by a previous Peace Corps Volunteer who lived among this specific community during the sixties and her emotional battle of how cultural and natural resources are taken advantage of through capitalistic measures. (oil companies) A captivating story of love, pain, angst and pure raw emotion.

[Teri]

Here is a good book about Oil in the rainforest and how far the Oil Companies went and will go to get what they want...actually what the USA will do...I read it many years ago but it is an emotional and informative book.

[Amanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Finally finished it. Liked it but felt like it was a bit too emotional. Very good story though and eye opening

[Sandra Shwayder · Rating 5 out of 5]

Suspenseful, heartbreaking and authentic. I can't recommend it highly enough.

[Laurie Lisle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Green Fires reads like a mystery, but it is also a heart-wrenching story full of vivid and beautiful observation about love and loss in the jungle of Ecuador.