“In the turbulent 1960s Pokerwinski and her family move to American Samoa just as the author is between girlhood and womanhood, and just as the territory is balanced between Samoan and American cultures. Part travelogue, part family drama, part coming-of-age story, Pokerwinski deftly explores our fascination with teenage angst and exotic locations. Here, in loving, lush, and particular detail, is a welcoming yet troubled paradise for the reader to explore. As the Samoans would say, MANGO RASH is matagofie – beautiful.”
--Sue William Silverman, author of The Pat Boone Fan Club: My Life as a White Anglo-Saxon Jew
--Sue William Silverman, author of The Pat Boone Fan Club: My Life as a White Anglo-Saxon Jew
“MANGO RASH is a beautifully written coming-of-age story, where friendship and humour travel the same sun bleached pathways as loss and tragedy, through the heart and mind of young teenager Nancy, whose loving portrayal of tropical Samoa and its people will stay with you long after you turn the last frangipani scented page.”
--Lene Fogelberg, author of The Wall Street Journal bestselling memoir Beautiful Affliction
--Lene Fogelberg, author of The Wall Street Journal bestselling memoir Beautiful Affliction
“This is the real thing, a book that takes you effortlessly to somewhere you want to go. MANGO RASH is a memoir that reads like a novel, a very good novel, in the esteemed tradition of the Bildungsroman—the story of an adolescent American girl who goes and grows in search of answers to life's questions. The intriguing twist here is that she does so in a place and culture drastically different from her own—Pago Pago, American Samoa.
“Nan Sanders Pokerwinski tells her memories of her year in Samoa fifty-some years ago with a light narrative touch, soft humor, and a poet’s eye for detail— ‘the ocean’s brackish bouquet.’ She has a novelist’s skill for making her characters real and individual. Her memoir is a travelogue not just to Samoa but also into a young girl’s mind as she toys with the edges of adulthood, with Margaret Mead as her travel guide. Yes, this is young Nancy Sanders’—late of Stillwater, Oklahoma—coming of age in Samoa.
“Nan (after reading her book I feel like we have known each other a long time) is also an astute ethnographer. I arrived in Samoa a decade after the events and observations related here, but not much had changed in Pago Pago in that interim. After almost three decades in Samoa as an historian, folklorist, and preservationist, I can attest to the accuracy of her observations. Her curiosity about and immersion in her host culture, the fa’asamoa, was exceptional.”
--John Enright, author of the Detective Apelu Soifua Jungle Beat Mystery series
“Nan Sanders Pokerwinski tells her memories of her year in Samoa fifty-some years ago with a light narrative touch, soft humor, and a poet’s eye for detail— ‘the ocean’s brackish bouquet.’ She has a novelist’s skill for making her characters real and individual. Her memoir is a travelogue not just to Samoa but also into a young girl’s mind as she toys with the edges of adulthood, with Margaret Mead as her travel guide. Yes, this is young Nancy Sanders’—late of Stillwater, Oklahoma—coming of age in Samoa.
“Nan (after reading her book I feel like we have known each other a long time) is also an astute ethnographer. I arrived in Samoa a decade after the events and observations related here, but not much had changed in Pago Pago in that interim. After almost three decades in Samoa as an historian, folklorist, and preservationist, I can attest to the accuracy of her observations. Her curiosity about and immersion in her host culture, the fa’asamoa, was exceptional.”
--John Enright, author of the Detective Apelu Soifua Jungle Beat Mystery series
“A coming-of-age journey that feels both exotic and deeply relatable . . . MANGO RASH is warm, witty, and poignant, rendered with lyrical language and keen insight.”
--Jenny Feldon, author of Karma Gone Bad: How I Learned to Love Mangos, Bollywood and Water Buffalo
--Jenny Feldon, author of Karma Gone Bad: How I Learned to Love Mangos, Bollywood and Water Buffalo
“Neither miles, nor years, can erode the lasting sights, textures, and life lessons of the South Pacific, in Nan Sanders Pokerwinski’s keenly aware teenage voice. Amidst the coconut milk, aitu spirits, and green mangoes, she learns ‘The Samoan way,’ the spirit of pitching in, the island notion that obligation to others is not a burden at all but rather a mark of respect and devotion. There is poetry here, and insight, and postcard perfect beaches if you dare to find them. ‘Even on the brightest day, sunlight barely penetrated the canopy.’ And even in the darkest moments, Nan’s fresh outlook penetrates the dense jungle of new experiences, toward the light of real, if hard won, wisdom.”
--Mardi Jo Link, author of Bootstrapper and The Drummond Girls
--Mardi Jo Link, author of Bootstrapper and The Drummond Girls
“In MANGO RASH, an Oklahoma teenager arrives in an unfamiliar and often contradictory paradise, sixties Samoa, and faces a year of experiences that range from the typical questions of how to make friends (and find boyfriends!) to the life-changing challenges of catastrophic weather, drownings, and unexpected illness. In the context of common crushes and uncommon crisis, her friendships with islanders, internationals, and transplants like herself, lead to a growing maturity that, even in the land of tropical wonder, must be tested. Sanders Pokerwinski writes authentically of these tests, of her growing love for the country and its people, and of her rising consciousness of racism, bigotry, and cultural difference. This memoir explores a rare time in a rare country, a rare time in a young life, and in the light of Samoa’s timeless sun, an even rarer discovery: life’s transience, even in so beautiful a place as paradise.”
--Anne-Marie Oomen, author of three memoirs, including Love, Sex and 4-H (Next Generation Indie Award for Memoir); editor ELEMENTAL: A Collection of Michigan Nonfiction (Michigan Notable Book 2019)
--Anne-Marie Oomen, author of three memoirs, including Love, Sex and 4-H (Next Generation Indie Award for Memoir); editor ELEMENTAL: A Collection of Michigan Nonfiction (Michigan Notable Book 2019)