Linda Gambill’s “The Geography of Desire” is an interesting, thoughtful memoir of her experience in a village in The Gambia as a Peace Corps volunteer in the late 1970’s. She’s the first volunteer in this particular village and has many trials and challenges to overcome with cultural differences, being a young, unmarried woman, and trying to make a difference without a roadmap.

Her writing is raw, personal, and reflective. She details her relationship with community…including romantic at times, as well as her own personal growth during this time.

It’s a great, really engaging read about a place many Americans probably know very little about. I very much enjoyed this read, especially as I toured The Gambia for a week to go birding! It was great to give me more context and background about this country.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

This book was excellent in so many ways. The author served in the peace corps in the time before cell phones and the internet, and it was refreshing to read how people lived without this technology. She was shared her loneliness, life in the Africa in villages and cities, the people, and her relationships with friends and lovers. Her writing style is vividly descriptive, interesting and heartfelt, and made me feel like I was living alongside her, I learned so much about the peace corps, Africa, and travel. I give it five stars. Thank you to NetGalley for letting me enjoy this wonderful journey.

Such an unexpectedly enthralling read. This memoir was a great introduction into a nation and part of history that I knew little about, after reading I feel like I understand more about that part of the world than I did before.

And as someone who has also faced the loneliness and isolation of being a sort of expat in a foreign land, I really identified with Linda's journey through her own loneliness and need for connection, and her discovery of a new side of herself through the process.

This was a great book. I loved the writing. This is one of the few books i have read recently that makes me feel like I am along for their adventure.

What a delightful find! Linda Gambill gives us a memoir focused on her time in the Peace Corps when she spent three years in Gambia. I had to look it up on a map to discover it is in western Africa, and I must say I admire the adventurous spirit that allowed a twenty-something woman from Tennessee to travel that road.

As her story unfolds we come to know her quite well. The writing is straightforward and honest. There are explorations of various fears, including the immediacy of an armed rebellion happening more or less outside her door. Physical longings, difficulties of communicating in multiple local languages, traversing the ups and downs of human relationships. And, ultimately wanting her service to make a difference.

I loved the story, the candor with which it is told, and the appreciation for a culture of which I knew nothing before coming upon this moving book.

The book was transporting, and not just because the author travels, courtesy of the Peace Corps, to such an unusual setting—a devout Muslim village in The Gambia. I admired how Gambill (who went on to be an acclaimed photographer, a therapist, and an ESL teacher) managed to make the setting come to life on the page.
I felt the heat, saw the red dirt paths through the dense jungle, and tasted fresh mangoes, still warm from the sun. I experienced the hardship of gardening in the jungle, the thrill of riding a motorbike to the nearest ferry stop along the river, and the joy of falling in lust, as well as in love. The villagers I met were real people I laughed or argued with; the young women were open and friendly, the young men sometimes a bit too friendly. Endless insects and some religious intolerance were equally annoying.
Gambill, like most young Peace Corps volunteers, was searching for meaning and purpose; she left a complicated life behind her in the U.S., in the form of a toxic relationship. In The Gambia, she finds desire—see the title—but in the couple of years the memoir covers, she learns much more about herself (her own nature, as it were) than she does about the two young men she has relationships with

A fascinating memoir of the author’s time in a remote village in The Gambia in 1979-1981. Having also lived in a remote village in a very different country and continent, I could relate to some of Linda’s feelings when she was struggling at the beginning. At the same time, I enjoyed learning about a country and culture that I do not know much about.

The writing style is very engaging and descriptive like a novel, it helps you to form a mental image of the situation. While I didn’t find it to be riveting, I was never bored while reading it either and there were some occasions when I had to keep reading to find out what happened next, but not throughout the whole book.

I would like photos to be included, but realise that it could be tricky while trying to keep the village and residents unidentifiable. But perhaps some photos of the town and other areas that couldn't be identified could be included.

A great book for those wanting to learn more about other parts of the world. If you’re in the mood to read a memoir set in a village in Africa (a very specific mood!), this is a good book to consider.

Thank you to Apprentice House Press and NetGalley for providing this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.