PASSPORT STAMPS

A war correspondent explores the dark corners of post-9/11 world history in this debut memoir.

Carberry never imagined himself a journalist, let alone a war correspondent who’d spend years in some of the most dangerous places in the world. As a Gold Record–winning audio engineer and record producer, he produced the radio show The Connection, aired by Boston’s National Public Radio. Following a traumatic personal experience and the 9/11 terrorist attacks and subsequent war in Afghanistan, he felt called by “a sense of public duty” to shift careers. More than a decade later, as a Peabody Award–winning journalist for NPR, the author offers a “Bourdain-esque travel book” that takes readers on an international tour that juxtaposes the “dust, grit, ragged infrastructure…and way too much food poisoning” of war-torn nations with the “beauty, humanity, generosity, [and] kindness” of people (and cats) encountered along the way. Aside from occasional stints in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Serbia, and Washington, D.C., most of the book takes place in North Africa and the Middle East as Carberry covers the genocide in Sudan’s Darfur region and America’s wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. It’s an intimate book—much of the narrative focuses on the author battling his own personal demons (“I am still broken and full of holes,” he writes in the final pages), and Carberry openly discusses sensitive topics that include post-traumatic stress disorder, suicidal ideations, gruesome violence, and loneliness. With an advanced degree from the Harvard Kennedy School and a career that included a stint at the Department of Defense, the author has a firm grasp on historical context and international politics. As such, he offers a well-informed, probing commentary on American foreign policy in the 21st century as well as a behind-the-scenes look at modern journalism, which, he notes, is often based on “dumb luck.” Citing Hunter S. Thompson and Warren Zevon (who provided “the soundtrack to this book”) as his influences, Carberry relates globe-hopping, often chaotic anecdotes that effectively evoke both his internal turmoil and the existential dangers that surrounded him for years.

A poignant, gritty memoir of a disillusioned reporter.