Love and Loss in Cambodia: A Memoir
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Love and Loss in Cambodia: A Memoir
I'm happy to announce that my e book is available through Amazon!
"Love and Loss in Cambodia" is a memoir by Debra Groves Harman. As a teenager, she carried a heavy burden of grief and responsibility when her only brother died in a sudden accident. Her family falls apart, and then her father is critically injured in his own accident. She's the only one left standing. Years are lost.
Perhaps that explains why she was willing to leave the US and go to parts unknown--ending up in Cambodia with LTO, who she'd been with since 1989. Memories are drawn from the 1990s when the author lived in Sihanoukville and Phnom Penh.
That decade was considered dangerous, with Khmer Rouge active on Route 4. When she first arrived in 1994, three Westerners had recently been killed by Khmer Rouge bandits, and three more Westerners had been kidnapped. In 1997, political opponents took their political differences to the streets of Phnom Penh in a bloody battle called a coup by some, factional fighting by others. Though many people fled the violence, she and Ken (LTO) stayed.
This story is one of adventure, and includes the brushes with the danger of the 90s. It's also about finding true friends, not only the Cambodian people who become family to her, but others from all over the world. Ultimately, it’s a story about facing the truth, about loss, and about resilience.
The author was an ESL teacher with ACE Phnom Penh and also a US Embassy Warden, and anecdotes throughout the book will resonate with those who love Cambodia and Southeast Asia, or readers who want to know what it was like in that era.
* * * * *
I wonder if you can order it from Cambodia? Let me know what you know about that.
The paperback will be available soon, and I'm working to get it printed / published in Cambodia, too.
Deb
Last edited by GCramerHarman on Tue Jul 02, 2019 10:45 am, edited 3 times in total.
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also might add to say who you were with...
add a link to your amazon page
add a link to your amazon page
- violet
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Deb was here with her husband, known on this forum as LTO (who unfortunately died a couple of years ago).
Deb's a 0.5 on the expat scale. Respect.
Deb's a 0.5 on the expat scale. Respect.
The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled.
- Plutarch
- Plutarch
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Thanks. I'm grateful. I was here from 1994 through 2001, and have been back several times, most recently for my ex's funeral. If you were there, you probably met me.
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I've mentioned Ken (LTO / FP), and included the link to my page, but it's Amazon "wherever you are." I'm in the US, but just put in the details and scroll, and you should find me.over the rainbow wrote: ↑Tue Jul 02, 2019 7:55 amalso might add to say who you were with...
add a link to your amazon page
Thanks for your interest.
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I have a friend who wrote a memoir, a lot of it set in PP 1990s.
He killed himself.
He killed himself.
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Lovely! I'm not dead yet.tonytonytony wrote: ↑Tue Jul 02, 2019 1:27 pmI have a friend who wrote a memoir, a lot of it set in PP 1990s.
He killed himself.
Tell me his name. I might know him.
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James Whitwell. The book is called The Godtheif. The part set in Cambodia is all about how hated he was by the entire expat community of PP and also how he liked to indulge in sodomy with teenage prostitutes in between heroin binges.
Lad.
Lad.
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The Godthief, a manic sociopath, waits for death. In St Petersburg, a hired assassin will bring a point to an unfocussed life, leaving a fortnight for the hero to scratch out an account of his life.
Born into an image of privilege, the Godthief left England in contempt, dissipated in Australia, and reached unholy conclusions in Phnom Penh. But following an epiphany of failure in the colonial-style library, there was no more: the manifesto was unwritten, the armies unassembled, his eminence unproven. He would never become the hero of a novel. Nothing left but to turn the lamp on, make the sun strange, and credit the luminaries of Russian literature for his imminent demise.
Never heard of it before.
Romantic Cambodia is dead and gone. It's with McKinley in the grave.
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It's actually quite good in a Charles Bukowski type of way if that be your thing. Talented writer. And an intelligent man. But an absolute nutter. He died in Saigon of a heroin overdose likely to be a suicide. Not sure if the people in the book have had there names changed but I recall a character called Dieter who hung out at Café Sontieheip. (spelling?)
I know another nutjob from that period too - Andy, an Englishman who worked for the UN, then quit and ran a bar. Doesn't narrow it down I know.
He ended up running a bar called The Rusty Nail in Nha Trang with his crazy khmer missus. This was in 2008. Unless he stopped drinking I would be astonished if he is still in Nha Trang or, indeed, still walking the earth.
I know another nutjob from that period too - Andy, an Englishman who worked for the UN, then quit and ran a bar. Doesn't narrow it down I know.
He ended up running a bar called The Rusty Nail in Nha Trang with his crazy khmer missus. This was in 2008. Unless he stopped drinking I would be astonished if he is still in Nha Trang or, indeed, still walking the earth.
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Hey, tonytonytony---it's interesting that you've mentioned that person. Did he run a bar in SHV? I love Nha Trang.
LTO's gf grew up there, and he built her family a big house.
LTO's gf grew up there, and he built her family a big house.
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Maybe. I lived in Nha Trang in 2008. I liked it but it was small time blues with loads of old drunks who spent there days nursing beers and gossiping about one another. So I left.GCramerHarman wrote: ↑Wed Jul 03, 2019 9:13 amHey, tonytonytony---it's interesting that you've mentioned that person. Did he run a bar in SHV? I love Nha Trang.
LTO's gf grew up there, and he built her family a big house.
You might know Andre from Nha Trang. Complete psycho.
James Whitwell worked at ACE too. He got sacked.
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