cover image Out of Grace: An Unlikely Journey Through Guatemala’s Haunted Lands

Out of Grace: An Unlikely Journey Through Guatemala’s Haunted Lands

Cynthia Renwick. CreateSpace, $15 trade paper (210p) ISBN 978-1-4997-9003-0

In well-written prose, Renwick chronicles her 10 months in Guatemala in 2002 while on a Fulbright Fellowship. Ostensibly in the Central American country to study the evolution of textile design following Guatemala’s convulsive civil war of the 1980s, Renwick quickly realizes her time abroad will be a personal exploration rather than an anthropological one. Beginning her journey in Guatemala City—or Guate, as it is called by the locals—Renwick is shocked by the poverty, violence, and crime that she encounters. She abandons her Methodist faith and begins searching for something else to fill this void. Despite strict warnings from the embassy against traveling in the countryside, Renwick finds refuge on picturesque Lake Atitilán and soon moves to the hippie town of San Pedro. Weaving together Mayan culture, Guatemalan history, and stories of shamanism, the narrative sometimes loses steam as we learn about drug-addled expats and wandering foreigners who have settled in this lakeside town. Although Renwick’s naïveté about poverty can be distracting and results in stereotypical descriptions, her beautiful imagery deftly portrays the multifaceted life of Guatemala. (BookLife)