BY KAREN BOSSICK
Tag along as “The Idaho Traveler” Alan Minskoff reviews small town Idaho. Imagine how you might handle the rigid society of Tehran after growing up in liberal America. And take a fresh look at PTSD among Vietnam soldiers.
All three of these topics are designed to engage brains at Ketchum’s Community Library this week.
- When a new patient triggers Psychologist John Moore’s own traumatic memories of the last days of the Vietnam War, he goes on a journey to modern-day Vietnam.
There, in the novel “Legacy of War,” he confronts his own war demons: The dying, a rogue CIA agent, corrupt South Vietnamese Army officers and the war’s perverted killing machine—the Phoenix Program, a program designed by the CIA to identify and destroy the Viet Cong via infiltration, torture, counter-terrorism, interrogation and assassination.
Moore fights a new war in his mind as he revisits the jungles, his anguish compounded by his wife’s death and his growing attraction to a national police agent.
The novel’s author Ed Marohn will discuss his novel during a free presentation at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 12, at Ketchum’s Community Library. He will also discuss PTSD among military veterans and his own experience facilitating a PTSD group for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
Marohn served in the Vietnam War with the 25th Infantry Division and the 101st Airborne Division. He later served as an assistant professor of Military History at the University of Nevada.
- At 6 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 14, Sharon Shaghayegh “Poppy” Farsijani will describe her sometimes hilarious story as a young rebellious teenager forced to move from Brooklyn to Iran when her father decided she was becoming “too white.”
Farsijani chronicled her story in the book “Shaming My Red Lips.”
The diary-like account describes a young girl who was on track to go to college and pursue a career in journalism when her father wrenched her from her liberal American life and relocated the entire family to the rigid Islamic country where her family had originated.
Before she disembarks from the plane, she must put on a long coat and head scarf. And she quickly learns that she faces arrest if she wears red lipstick and push back if she listens to pop music, wears jeans, takes dance classes or shows any interest in men.
The story is one of change, fear, hope and, ultimately, triumph as she fights to maintain her freedom and identity. After working as an evening news anchor and talk show host for stations in Tehran, she returned to the United States where she studied at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and at California State Fullerton and Pepperdine university.
She is currently an anchor for KMVT in Twin Falls.
- At 4 p.m. Friday, Oct. 15, Alan Minskoff will discuss his book The Idaho Traveler.
Minskoff, who has taught journalism at the College of Idaho since 2001, embarked on a tour of Idaho in 1976 to visit Idaho’s small towns. He took to Idaho’s blacktop 40-plus years later to record his latest impressions of the towns, their old buildings, the people, the food and, especially, the best sources for pie.
He recorded his new impressions of towns like Oakley, Paris, Idaho City and Wallace in “The Idaho Traveler,” a historical and culinary tour. And he and Doug Copsey are trying to raise money to have Idaho Public TV screen a visual component of “The Idaho Traveler.”