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Overview
In the tradition of Prague and White Teeth, This Is Not Civilization is an inspired, sweeping debut novel that hopscotches from Arizona to Central Asia to Istanbul with a well-meaning, if misguided, young Peace Corps volunteer. Jeff Hartig lies at the center of this modern take on the American-abroad tale, which brings together four people from vastly different backgrounds, each struggling with the push and pull of home. A young Apache, Adam Dale, forsakes the reservation for the promise of a world he knows little about. Anarbek Tashtanaliev, of post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan, operates a cheese factory that no longer produces cheese. Nazira, his daughter, strains against the confines of their village’s age-old traditions.
With captivating insight, realism, and humor, Robert Rosenberg delivers a sensitive story about the cost of trying to do good in the world.
Synopsis
In the tradition of Prague and White Teeth, This Is Not Civilization is an inspired, sweeping debut novel that hopscotches from Arizona to Central Asia to Istanbul with a well-meaning, if misguided, young Peace Corps volunteer. Jeff Hartig lies at the center of this modern take on the American-abroad tale, which brings together four people from vastly different backgrounds, each struggling with the push and pull of home. A young Apache, Adam Dale, forsakes the reservation for the promise of a world he knows little about. Anarbek Tashtanaliev, of post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan, operates a cheese factory that no longer produces cheese. Nazira, his daughter, strains against the confines of their village’s age-old traditions.
With captivating insight, realism, and humor, Robert Rosenberg delivers a sensitive story about the cost of trying to do good in the world.
L.A. Times Sunday Book Review - Mark Rozzo
Brimming...This Is Not Civilization" is a brave adventure into the heart of a new world...often hilarious... Rosenberg...has created a sparkling new take on Jorge Luis Borges' map drawn to the exact scale of the actual world, in which every place - and person - is at once at our fingertips and yet hopelessly out of reach.
Editorials
Christopher Buckley
The details are bracing and exact. The author served in the Peace Corps in Kyrgyzstan and worked on an Apache reservation. At times his descriptions are so well rendered that one yearns to be somewhere else, say Terre Haute or Albany. Quite possibly he felt this way himself, since he arrived in Istanbul in 1999 for a teaching job five days before an earthquake hit that killed tens of thousands of people. His description of the aftermath of this calamity is journalistic, humane and heart-wrenching.— The New York Times
Mark Rozzo
Brimming...This Is Not Civilization" is a brave adventure into the heart of a new world...often hilarious... Rosenberg...has created a sparkling new take on Jorge Luis Borges' map drawn to the exact scale of the actual world, in which every place - and person - is at once at our fingertips and yet hopelessly out of reach.—L.A. Times Sunday Book Review
Christian Science Monitor
This is risky comedy that in less deft hands would clunk into condescension, but Rosenberg keeps it aloft with a sweet sense of appreciation....what a generous, big-hearted book this is, perceptive enough to catch the goodness in all these well-intentioned people....In an era that gave us the term "compassion fatigue," his novel is a gentle rousing by someone who understands the complicated rewards of caring.Miami Herald
chosen as one of the "best literary offerings of the season"Applaud summer's Best Opening Sentence: "The idea of using porn films to encourage the dairy cows to breed was a poor one." But it's not just the first line of Robert Rosenberg's ambitious and enchanting debut novel that sings. Filled with knowing, deadpan humor and explicit understanding of what it's like to be pulled by and estranged from your homeland...In Rosenberg's generous, perceptive vision, any response is possible, maybe even noble.
Philadelphia Inquirer
The deft achievement of This Is Not Civilization... grows out of his surehanded grasp of [the] global status game.New York Newsday
[An] ambitious, sincere book...That this reunion...occurs in Istanbul, on the border of the West and the East, Europe and Asia, on the eve of the recent devastating Turkish earthquake, is one of Rosenberg's many lovely touches... It's to Rosenberg's credit that he lets this reality speak for itself, without explanation or tidying up at the end.The Texas Observer
"Small but perfectly captured details of place pervade this novel, continually transporting the reader between its multiple worlds...Rosenberg's real achievement is his insightful and subtle exploration of the way circumstances dictate lives; how, in a time of globalization and hyper-mobility, escape can always appear just a plane ticket or hemisphere away, and how, in such a context, the fealty to place becomes all the more meaningful. Despite the far-flung settings, this humane and engaging story about people and the choices we make has relevance for us all."Booklist
"Rosenberg's modern picaresque tour is a well-written, engaging, and promising debut."John Coyne
"Though most Peace Corps books are interesting, and some well written, few are literature. Nevertheless, every ten years or so a Peace Corps novel comes along that transcends our experience, transcends the ordinary 'Peace Corps story.' I can think of a handful of truly first rate books of fiction about our experience... And now we have Robert Rosenberg and his novel, THIS IS NOT CIVILIZATION."—editor, Peacecorpswriters.org