Foreign Service Reading List
Realities of Foreign Service Life
Click here to read about Realities of Foreign Service Life Volume 2!
Edited by Patricia Linderman and Melissa Brayer-Hess
A one-of-a-kind book that gives an honest, balanced view of the realities of living the mobile Foreign Service lifestyle. Writers from the U.S. Foreign Service community share their views and personal experiences through essays about all aspects of Foreign Service life. This book will be of interest to newcomers or veterans of the Foreign Service, and is particularly useful to those contemplating a Foreign Service career.
Mention a diplomatic career and most people imagine high-level meetings, formal dress and cocktail parties. Few stop to think that behind the occasional glitter of official functions are thousands of families facing all the routines and crises of life - births, deaths, childrearing, divorce - far from home, relatives, and friends, in an unfamiliar and sometimes unfriendly country and culture. This book provides reflections and perspectives on the realities of Foreign Service life as experienced by members of the Foreign Service community around the world. The writers share their unvarnished views on a wide variety of topics they care about: maintaining long-distance relationships, raising teens abroad, dealing with depression, coping with evacuations, readjusting to life in the United States, and many others. These are stories from the diplomatic trenches - true experiences from those who have lived the lifestyle and want to share their hard-learned lessons with others.
If you are new to the Foreign Service, this book will offer insights and practical information useful in your overseas tours and when you return home. Even if you are a seasoned veteran of the Foreign Service, the reports and reflections of others may encourage you to compare and evaluate your own experiences.
If you (or your partner) are contemplating joining the Foreign Service, this book can serve as a reality check, giving you honest, personal perspectives on both the positive and negative aspects of Foreign Service life.
If you are a student wondering what the Foreign Service is all about, this book will broaden your knowledge and provide you with an insider's view not found in any textbook. All purchases of Realities of Foreign Service Life will help fund AAFSW's activities and services.
Review by Marilyn Wyatt:
This is the kind of book we all wish we could have read before joining the Foreign Service. With an abundance of charm and local color, it offers insights, encouragement, and practical tips to officers faced with their first Embassy posting, whether alone or encumbered with kids, pets, partners, and grandmother's china. On the other hand, some of us would never have joined if we had read this volume before signing up. Its beauty is that it presents embassy life in all of its aspects-the good, the bad, and the ugly.
Realities of Foreign Service Life is a collection of 35 essays written by and for embassy insiders. The first few essays are upbeat and sunny, offering a wry but reassuring view of the life we know so well. Is it just a coincidence that all of these authors seem to have passed large portions of their careers in the Caribbean? In and amongst some painfully obvious conclusions ("living in a foreign country can be much harder than living in the States") there is wit ("diplomatic life has been a truly moving experience"), romance ("pampered, content, and in love with being in love, we succumbed to the luxury and romance that enveloped us"), mystery ("in Barbados I had a large troop of wild golden monkeys who came to my courtyard every evening"), and pathos ("I noticed the private bath we were promised: … a bare, yellowed toilet bowl … with no seat, proudly visibly through the doorless bath entrance").
There is also, in generous measure, topics that are the beloved staple of Foreign Service dinner party conversation, including My Worst Moving Experience (the time they packed the pan still containing the ham), My Wildest Ride (on a dirt road across the lowlands of Ethiopia), and My Most Challenging Meal (the cute lamb they to introduced guests before slaughtering and serving up roasted). Speaking of food, two memorable essays-"Pining for Pop-Tarts" and "Shopping as a Cross-Cultural Experience"-will surely be valuable resources for a future doctoral student in the anthropology of diplomacy.
Eventually, the book moves into a more practical mode, and in so doing gains in both interest and usefulness. Chapters on moving overseas with pets and children offer helpful advice for anyone facing this responsibility for the first time. Somewhat surprisingly, difficult relationship issues are addressed with refreshing honesty. Experiences with commuter marriages, foreign-born spouses, and even gay partners are recounted and assessed against State Department policy. Douglas Kerr has contributed a insightful look at the pros and cons of being a male trailing spouse, based on observations of the microcosm that is Embassy Warsaw. Work options for spouses; the challenges of divorce, depression, and the medical clearance process; and the new security climate are other topics that are treated with a frankness one does not always associate with Washington briefings and post reports.
Although most of the material in this book is anecdotal, Realities of Foreign Service Life is an excellent starting point for newcomers to embassy life-the already-joined as well as the thinking-about-it. In proof of this claim, a recent house guest who had passed the written exam but was awaiting the oral actually made off with my copy, so that his partner could read it and, hopefully, be convinced they still had a future together. One hopes for a follow-up volume that will continue the discussion of the changing demographics and expectations of today's Foreign Service. The perspectives of officers who have left the service mid-career, of middle-aged junior officers, and-dare I say it?-of baby-boom ambassador and DCM spouses and partners are only a few of the contributions that we can look forward to in a second edition.
Marilyn Wyatt is a former Foreign Service officer and current FS spouse, now serving with her DCM husband in Warsaw.
About the Editors:
Patricia Linderman is a writer, translator and associate editor of Tales from a Small Planet. She has lived as a Foreign Service family member in Trinidad, Chile, Cuba and Germany.
Melissa Brayer-Hess is a writer, teacher and former managing editor of this website. She has lived in France, Nigeria, Russia, Algeria, Egypt, and Ukraine.
Melissa and Patricia have also co-authored the guidebook The Expert Expatriate: Your Guide to Successful Relocation Abroad.
All proceeds from the sale of this book benefit the Associates of the American Foreign Service Worldwide (AAFSW), sponsors of this website.