In Pursuit of Disobedient Women

December 15, 2019
The story of an American journalist's experiences with extraordinary women in West Africa. When Searcey was appointed West Africa bureau chief for the New York Times and moved to Dakar, Senegal, she knew there would be both personal and work-related hardships. What she didn't fully anticipate was learning the true extent of the atrocities the women she interviewed had endured. In this revealing, sometimes heartbreaking memoir, the author shares the stories of the women she met. As she notes, these accounts never made it into the newspaper, or if they did, they didn't receive the amount of attention they deserved because Donald Trump and the roiling political situation in the U.S. consumed most of the available space. Here are tales of violence and heroism as women and girls were kidnapped by the militant group Boko Haram, raped and/or forced to marry older militants, and ordered to serve as suicide bombers. With tremendous courage and a strong will to live, these women disobeyed orders; remarkably, they are able to talk about the many seemingly insurmountable obstacles they have faced. Searcey also discusses the more well-known Chibok girls and her attempts to interview and photograph them, which proved to be a lesson in patience and persistence. She balances her tales of work with those of being a mother and wife and the strains and struggles placed on both she and her husband as they pursued life in a foreign country. The author demonstrates her journalistic skills by providing ample pertinent details to flesh out each chapter, centered around a different interviewee. As a mother and woman, she gives an honest account of her personal experiences. The combination is powerful and moving and brings much-needed attention to the plight of these women. For further difficult yet important reading on this topic, see Wolfgang Bauer's Stolen Girls (2017) and Helen Habila's The Chibok Girls (2016). Empathetic, compelling narratives from a part of the world too often overlooked.

COPYRIGHT(2019) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

February 10, 2020
Journalist Searcey trades the subway for the sub-Sahara in this intense account of balancing work and family as West Africa bureau chief for the New York Times from 2015 to 2019. Just as her husband Todd was urging a move from Brooklyn to the suburbs to reduce stress in their dual-career household, Searcy accepted the bureau position and opted instead for a gated villa in the seaside city of Dakar, Senegal, a staff of four, and private school for their children. Once settled, the disparity between old and new lives hit her: “Here, in an instant, we had become superrich people.” The constant travel in reporting on 25 countries of West and Central Africa made family life difficult: when her elementary-school age daughter wrote in an essay, “There is no peace at this place,” she was floored: “Were we crazy trying to pull this off?” Always hoping for a front-page story and that “my work could be a force for good,” Among other stories, Searcey reported on Boko Haram, the Islamic extremist group responsible for kidnapping more than 250 schoolgirls in Chibok, Nigeria, in 2014. Searcey is a straightforward narrator, especially as she describes turning down the Paris bureau chief position in order to return her family to the U.S. (“I had carted across the world and in some ways abandoned him”). Readers will enjoy this earnest look at life as a newspaper bureau chief.

March 13, 2020

Searcey, former New York Times West Africa bureau chief, intersperses reflections on her own family life with stories about women in West Africa. In 2015, she and her family relocated to Dakar, Senegal. For the first time, the author became her family's breadwinner while her husband shifted into the role of primary caretaker for their three young children. Searcey shares her struggles with achieving a healthy work-life balance and offers insight into other "disobedient" women whom she met: Rahila was kidnapped and trained as a suicide bomber; Aisha felt more free under the yoke of Boko Haram than in her own village; Zalika, who takes advantage of the new divorce laws to defy her marriage; and Balaraba, who was forced to don a suicide vest but was able to escape her fate. Searcey is a powerful writer who is aware of her privilege and honest about her mistakes. Her personal story relates the sacrifices she made as a journalist while also trying to keep the family unit together. VERDICT Recommended for readers who enjoyed the memoirs of journalists and writers Marie Colvin, Clarissa Ward, Martha Gellhorn, and Anne Garrels, and anyone wishing to learn more about social and political life in West Africa.--Maria Bagshaw, Elgin Community Coll. Lib., IL

Copyright 2020 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 1, 2020
Investigative journalist Searcey had been considering a move to the New York City suburbs in 2015. She and her husband, Todd, were balancing two careers, three children, and difficult commutes, and needed a change. Instead, Searcey applied to be the New York Times West Africa bureau chief, and she and her family soon moved to their new home in Dakar, Senegal. In Pursuit of Disobedient Women chronicles Searcey's three years in West Africa. She took month-long reporting trips to interview women who had been suicide bombers for Boko Haram, and investigated military abuses in refugee camps. Simultaneously, Searcey tried to balance being an active parent to her children and a partner to Todd, who struggled with feeling that his career was not a priority. Throughout her reporting across the region, Searcey met women with unbelievable resilience: women divorcing husbands who would not let them work, women excelling in male-dominated industries, women escaping from terrorist camps. Well-written and illuminating, Searcey's memoir introduces readers to life in contemporary West Africa and the work of overseas reporting.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)