TURN RIGHT AT THE WATER BUFFALO
Jeannie Barroga
$24.95 / ISBN: 978-1-58790-591-9 / 286 pages / paperback / 6’x9’”
Fiction / A Novel
ABOUT THE BOOK
Americanized Filipina Lainie Cortez like Alice in Oz-like Philippines follows her mother Reena, to attend her overdue forty-second family reunion in Leyte 1989. She is challenged by her travels editor to write and capture the spirit of this town.
Through initial chapters, the reader views the differences and similarities of mother and daughter including each of their long-held secrets.
Lainie has no language skills, no cultural comparison, and no bodyguard. Typical of her mother Reena’s M.O., Lannie is assigned second cousin Juan, brother to their hostess, Nita, who has held down the fort to land ownership for the decades Reena has lived in the United States.
Numerous signs pave Lainie’s path as well as lead her to more cultural entanglements. These include the warnings she ignores about the elusive New People’s Army while meeting kababayans/siligan (countrymen), a matriarchal town, tree-shimmying squatters, the barangay’s respected doyen (honored female role) , and Ormoc’s most elite citizen, debonair cousin Luis. She cannot help but become more enlightened about WWII renovation, island-wide classism and rebellion in this impoverished area rich with traditions. The well-attended Reunion, surprise guests, and nocturnal flight define one night, which turns ominous.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, baby boomer Jeannie Barroga is second of five siblings. Their Catholic-raised parents are Ilocano and Visayan, a mix common after World War II. Jeannie was an average student at a university taking Fine Arts, who after transferring to the English Department, moved to California. She plied more arts, settling on musical band and documentary reviews for a Stanford underground newspaper before freelancing as Bay Frog Graphics. Only full-time gig was in Stanford Pediatrics, then at Palo Alto Weekly, and then Learning Magazine re-named Mother Jones. Returning to Wisconsin to magazine graphics, she married an artist yet moved back and worked at Stanford Alumni before becoming TheatreWorks’ Literary Manager overlapping the same position at Oakland Ensemble Theater. Single again, her produced plays garnered awards and are in various theses and syllabi cross-country. She worked a myriad of jobs, served on national panels, taught, co-produced online shorts, and married the actor in her plays, Tony. Their marriage came with cats who accept the arrangement. Jeannie is inspired by Madeleine L’Engle, Nicola Tesla, American musicals, complicity, the 1950s, The Wizard of Oz, Dashiell Hammett, the Milwaukee Braves, and Hui Playwrights to write on women, art, and politics. More plays now are read at zoom meetings, with one taped for a 2021 online production at UH-Hilo’s Performing Arts Center. Two more books are due out soon. With this book, she pays tribute to loved ones passing on: Sarah, Rita, June, Ann, Myrna, Martin, friends Al and Peter (rally on: VBL, MBH, FS, and GH).