The Foreign Service Journal, November 2004

The Royals and the Roaches: Living Abroad with the Government Patricia L. Hughes, iUniverse, Inc., 2004, $22.95, paperback, 314 pages. In this absorbing and well-written memoir, FSO spouse Patricia Hughes gives readers a candid, tough-minded and fun look at living abroad at the behest of our government. She expresses the frustrations and concerns of a mother and wife, while accepting with good humor that the Foreign Service acquires “two for the price of one.” From terrorism and a civil war to lunch in a palace; from demonstrations and groupies, president and princesses to lifelong friends — this book presents the remarkable range of experiences, emotions, personalities and places that the author encountered during her husband’s two years with the Army and 35 years as a diplomat. Patricia Hughes grew up in Nebraska and graduated from the University in Lincoln. She accompanied her husband overseas in the Army and the Foreign Service, living in six countries. Now, after six years in Rome with a peacekeeping organization, they have returned to Bethesda, Md. River of Pearls Mary Stickney, iUniverse, Inc., 2004, $22.95, paperback, 325 pages. “The danger and romance of the lands comes alive in the book,” is what the Florida Times-Union said about Mary Stickney’s second book of memoirs, which is set in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam era. Accompanying her husband, a Foreign Service agricultural scientist who was working in a USAID pacification program in South Vietnam, the author and her children first settled in Bangkok and later F O C U S 38 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / N O V E M B E R 2 0 0 4