he first short story collection by former Peace Corps and development worker Roberta Worrick (Thomas’s real name) explores the various ways ex-pats come to new lands seeking renewal and fail to get what they came for.
The title story is a tragi-comic bump-and-grind ride through the final scenes of the failing marriage of peace workers; “Silver Sugar from Bombay” is a more bitter than sweet portrait of Indians stuck in the no-man’s land of an African that no longer wants them; “The Texan” subtly recounts how a well-intentioned Texan transforms into a cartoon racist. Worrick knew Africa and Americans in Africa, and veers far away from stereotypes.
Sadly, this was both her first and last story collection; she died in a plane crash in Ethiopia in 1989.
