No Ordinary Life: Awakenings in the Final Days of Apartheid by Mary Ann Byron, Lori Windsor Mohr
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Overview: NO ORDINARY LIFE follows Mary, a 29-year-old newlywed and her husband as they embark on their first diplomatic assignment to South Africa. A continued campaign of economic sanctions from the international community has pressured President De Klerk to negotiate with recently-freed Nelson Mandela to end apartheid with the end goal of democratic government. The transition from single to multi-party rule brings conflict, bloodshed as on-again, off-again negotiations create a culture of violence. Uncertainty about the future hangs like a cloud cover over the South African heat.
It is into this powder keg environment that Mary and Patrick arrive in Cape Town in August 1992 on their first diplomatic mission as a couple. A Special Agent in Diplomatic Security, Patrick must protect the Ambassador and the American community. Negotiations have broken down again after the latest massacre, the black townships are embroiled in gang warfare, and the Ambassador’s life has been threatened. Patrick immerses himself in work while Mary is left to find her way.
Stripped of her name and identity, Mary—Mrs. McGhee to the State Department—is denied permission to work in her field of public relations due to the current high risk. She refuses to be shuffled into passive domesticity as a ‘trailing spouse’. After their first diplomatic dinner at the Ambassador’s home, despite an argument with Patrick that threatens to send her back to the States, Mary lands a job at the American Embassy as a Foreign Service worker. But the unrelenting stress of Patrick’s job along with the constant threat of danger for both he and Mary—including surveillance 24/7 by National Party spies—takes a toll on the marriage. A growing malaise settles between them.
When an American young woman is murdered by a black mob outside Cape Town, Mary is shaken to the core. The American community is on edge. After yet another massacre, Patrick insists Mary learn to shoot. But no gun can protect her when the Hard Rock Cafe is bombed killing and injuring many.
Mary’s story unfolds in not only in Cape Town, but in the wilds of Kruger Park Game Reserve, the beauty of the wine country of the Western Province, and the captivating Atlantic coastal peninsula to the tip of Cape of Good Hope. In these stunning settings, she and Patrick find each other time and again while exploring the beautiful South African countryside. It is these where Mary is reminded that the stress of Foreign Service work is a constant threat for both of them.
This personal story of marriage in a foreign land parallels the political turmoil in Cape Town as the election draws near. On a professional level Mary steps out of her husband’s shadow and finds her footing, working on USAID project in the townships. But as plans for the election flounder, so does her relationship with Patrick. As the country goes to the brink and is transformed, so too, Mary changes from an idealistic, naive Midwestern girl to a mature woman committed to the mission of liberation for all South Africans, and determined to save her marriage.
NO ORDINARY LIFE offers an inside account of one of the most dangerous periods in South Africa’s modern history told through the eyes of a woman struggling to hang on to all she holds dear. It is also an uplifting portrayal of the staggering power of hope in a country’s struggle for freedom.
Genre: Non-Fiction > Biographies & Memoirs
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