Balancing Journalism With Personal Life

Illades_BookCover — Never the Hope Itself by Gerry Hadden. Harper Perennial. 352 pp. 2011. $10.19.

The first few paragraphs of “Never the Hope Itself,” Gerry Hadden’s memoir about being a correspondent for NPR in Latin America and the Caribbean, hook you immediately: Hadden was on his way to become a Buddhist monk before abruptly changing paths and turning into a radio reporter instead.

A few pages in, it turns out that reality is more nuanced. Hadden already had radio experience before joining NPR, and his foray into monk-hood is not quite the event he makes it out to be. He was on his way to a retreat, not onto full-fledged earthly withdrawal, when he took the position.

Hadden’s story is told as a series of vignettes that try to form a picture of his escapades and life as a foreign correspondent. We first meet him on one of Haiti’s dirt roads. Nightfall is approaching, his Jeep has lost both axles and gearbox and he needs to get back to Port Au Prince before thugs arrive. Hadden and his driver manage to fix the car, only to crash it minutes later. His foremost worry is for his recorded material, which is inside the vehicle. This was his first day on the job.

Never the Hope Itself is full of adventure. Each piece of the story has Hadden thrown into a dangerous location, with only his passport, his microphone and his fluency in Spanish to survive. One moment Hadden is illegally crossing the Guatemala-Mexico border with Central American immigrants. The next he is in the Panamanian jungle unearthing a new cocaine trail. Along the way he discovers that American soldiers are still involved in military activities in Central America years after the Contra scandal. By Hadden’s account, his reporting manages to shut down this undercover program.

There is also love and mystery, elements which make the book feel like a novel at some points. Hadden falls for a woman 12 years his junior, but she is already married. They start a clandestine affair, a subplot throughout the entire story. By the end of the book, they have eloped to Barcelona to raise their newborn child.

Ghosts -yes, ghosts- are present. The house Hadden rents in the affluent Condesa neighborhood in Mexico City is full of apparent paranormal activity. Hadden and his house-guests keep seeing figures in the mirrors. Books fall out of place. A bag of raisins levitates. A local shaman tells him that his house is haunted. Hadden, re-embracing his Buddhist past, accepts the ghosts and makes them part of his reality. We can only take Hadden’s word, but there is a clear feeling of disbelief when reading this.

The book touches briefly on Hadden’s origins. He was born in Sweden and adopted by American parents. He has an adopted sister. Save for a paragraph explaining this, the reader never learns anything more about his past, his drive towards reporting, or his relationship with Buddhism. This is a shortcoming, because he never becomes three-dimensional.

Moreover, Never the Hope Itself has many inaccuracies. Hadden writes that the Mexican president is elected for a five-year term, when it’s six. Iconic places like the Chapultepec castle are misspelled. These are inexcusable mistakes for a newsman.

Hadden’s story is told at a hyper-local level, with few bits of context sprinkled around. The reader needs to have some knowledge of Latin America in order to understand the events around him. Haiti’s turbulent situation, for example, is difficult to follow through Hadden’s book.

Hadden’s job also is secondary to his adventures, which is ironic, because it’s his job that leads him to them. His bosses at NPR only make cameo appearances by telephone, to bark orders or complain that his having a baby during Haiti’s collapse is inexcusable.

The reader gets a general feel of what Hadden sees, but not what he is looking for. He is more in love with the sights and sounds than the news.

As a whole, Never the Hope Itself is a moderately interesting read. Those who are looking for inspiration to become correspondents of chaos in war-torn countries will definitely find what they are looking for here. Those looking to understand Latin America and the Caribbean should look elsewhere.

Comment (1)

Dear Mr. Illedes,

Thank you for reading my book and for taking the time to write a review. I’m grateful to you for pointing out that the Mexican presidential term lasts six years, and not five. And for catching my type-o on Chapultepec. Both mistakes are mine. I’ll alert my editor immediately, should there be any further editions.

Your eye for spelling errors, however, seems to belie an otherwise cursory reading of the book itself. I’ll just follow the order of your observations.

Of course I had radio reporting experience before getting hired by NPR. Nobody could get a job like that without experience. Not in radio, not in TV, not in print journalism. I certainly never said or implied that I had no experience, so I’m not sure why you make the point that a few pages in to the book “the reality is more nuanced.” More nuanced than what?

Regarding the three-year Buddhist retreat of the sort I was contemplating, one essentially becomes a monk during that time. What you do when the retreat is over is your business. Some people stay on. But a Buddhist monk is always free to walk away from his monastery. So I’m not sure what you mean when you write that my foray into monk-hood “isn’t quite the event he makes it out to be.” To mind, it would have been an extraordinary, life-changing event. Just imagine putting aside three years of your life to meditate!

A small point, but nevertheless I don’t want to be made a hero: at the opening scene of the book my first concern was for my life, not for my recordings, as you say, which is why I threw myself out of the moving vehicle. My recordings wouldn’t have been much good to me dead.

Similarly, you make me out to be braver than I am when you say that the only thing I had keeping me safe were my passport, my microphone and my fluency in Spanish. All of those things definitely help (Re, my passport: Mexican journalists, as you well know, run huge dangers covering Juarez, for example, whereas people tend to leave the “gringo” reporters alone.) But you left out the most crucial protection I had on many of my assignments: my fixers. Without them many of my stories would never have materialized. And I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that I might not be here writing this comment tonight had it not been for their generous assistance. I devote much of the book to their excellent service.

In Panama, I did not stumble upon an undercover program involving U.S. soldiers. I stumbled upon empty MRE’s supplied to Panamanian police by the United States. This was no secret, although I didn’t know about it. Also, I do not recount that my report caused the program to be shut down. It may have helped, as several weeks after my interview with then U.S. ambassador to Guatemala, Prudence Bushnell, the U.S. cut off funding. But the program looked doomed to me already, given the amount of cocaine its members were stealing from official custody.

I can understand your feeling of disbelief regarding what you call the paranormal activity in my house in Mexico City. If I were you I’d feel the same way. The problem for me is that I actually lived there. My only real vindication came several weeks after we’d moved to Spain, in 2004. I was contacted by the reporter who replaced me, via email. She wanted to know whether there was anything I wanted to tell her about the house. We’d never discussed the place. When I asked her what she meant, she began to tell very similar stories. As I write in the book, her solution was to cleanse the place with a shaman. (I did not do that, as you wrote) And she did a story on it, archived on the NPR web page if you’d like to take a listen.

A few more small things:

I was born in New York City, not Sweden. It is true that I didn’t go into great depth there, but it was not “a paragraph” but rather four pages, the conclusion of which explains directly why I became interested in Buddhism. You mention in your review that I did not explain what drew me to the practice. That said, the section clearly was not enough to paint a full enough picture of the author for you, which is a perfectly valid opinion.

I think you’re right that one needs some very basic knowledge of Latin American and Caribbean history to most fully appreciate the events in my book. I hope that my recollections peak people’s interest to read more. But the memoir itself is not a history book per say.

As for my “job being secondary” to my “adventures,” not sure what to say. The “adventures” were my job. They weren’t two separate things. Just about every “adventure” became a radio story on Morning Edition or All Things Considered. On a related note, I loved working for NPR, but this is not a book about the personalities at NPR. My bosses only make “cameo appearances by telephone” because that’s how our relationship was set up. In more than four years I only physically saw them two or three times. As for the circumstances surrounding Anne’s near miscarriage (not the birth of our baby, as you write), I can only say, what happened happened. But I think I make it abundantly clear that I respected my editors’ professionalism and their need to have stories covered. In the end that’s why I left the foreign desk. Because I knew I was going to have trouble delivering what it needed AND getting what I needed from my personal life. The conflict, ultimately, was mine, as I wrote.

Your observation does, however, hint at how I see myself as a journalist. I see myself as a human being first, deeply concerned with the “hyper-local” level of events, by which I assume you meant “other human beings.” Because that’s where big macro policies and sweeping decisions that governments make play out. In the lives of local people. It’s true that someone needs to be covering the presidents in their palaces but that’s never been my way into stories.

Thanks again and all the best to you.

Sincerely,

December 11, 2011 Gerry Hadden

Balancing Journalism With Personal Life

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