Liberia: The Doctor’s Mission by Debbie Kaufman

 

It was with considerable hesitation that I picked up The Doctor’s Mission by Debbie Kaufman (Harlequin Love Inspired, 2011). Although my sampling of inspirational romance has given me a certain appreciation for the subgenre it has also confirmed that its aims make it a tricky one for me to read on any but a detached level. Even so, the rarity of a Liberian setting was a strong lure. Moreover, I was curious to discover how a present-day romance writer would tackle the anything but straightforward subject of Christian missionary work in Africa. Debbie Kaufman’s debut category historical brought several sharp surprises.

 

1918*. The Great War has ended and Red Cross doctor, Mary O’Hara, volunteers her services where she will not have to battle discrimination by the medical profession against female physicians. The missionary outposts in the Liberian interior are desperate for staff, and after the dangers and losses she has survived at the front the jungle appears a veritable sinecure. That is, until she meets her arrogant co-worker, who refuses to believe she can be part of God’s plan for Nynabo.

Despite high hopes Pastor William Mayweather has been unsuccessful in his attempts to continue the work begun by his martyred uncle and aunt. Delays caused by war-imposed interruptions in shipping, deaths from malaria, and the rules of the Mission Board have hampered progress at every turn. Being sent a young suffragette whose utter lack of local experience could prove a deadly liability is the last straw.

Their tense, adventurous trek to Nynabo is nothing compared to the conflicts that erupt once they tackle the problems at the neglected mission station. Both are used to being in charge. But when their mistakes put lives in danger, trust in everything they have questioned becomes their only hope.

 

 

Christian-themed romance, or inspirational romance as it is commonly termed in the USA, is sometimes dismissed or criticised by readers unfamiliar with its conventions as “preaching to the choir”. But from the viewpoint of Christian ministry this can be considered its great virtue: inspirational romance seems mostly written to edify believers and to strengthen the faith. As I understand the subgenre, if reading it encourages positive curiosity or turns thoughts to conversion, that is generally considered a bonus, not the primary goal.

 

Whereas the typical inspirational romance appears intended for members of Protestant denominations that embrace conservative values, the level or intensity of spirituality and religious themes within the novels seem to vary quite a bit. The quotient in The Doctor’s Mission starts out relatively breezy but intensifies and is escalated as the plot builds to its multi-part climax. Paradoxically, while the book ended up being the most religion-heavy inspirational romance I have read (which, given the subject, is of course not unexpected), it wears much of this content with an ease and naturalness that translates into fluidity and lightness. Before now, the religious conversion of a non-Christian or non-practising Christian hero or heroine has been the central focus of every inspirational romance that has come my way, and in each case issues with what I have perceived as facile handling and resolution of that process has interfered with rational acceptance and enjoyment of the story. The implausibility issues makes this premise the inspy equivalent of the “reforming the rake”-motif in general historical romance. The Doctor’s Mission chooses a different course. While it has its share of didactic dialogue the expression of religious sentiments is unforced, an organic outgrowth of Christian characters’ personal struggles instead of tiresome author-manipulated lectures in dogma followed by magic-wand-style conversions. Matters of faith are inextricable from the tightly woven plot, not a tangential theme. For a reader who belongs to (the misnamed) evangelical fiction’s target audience The Doctor’s Mission could, from a certain aspect, serve a devotional, spiritually uplifting purpose.

 

As in any standard romance, the relationship between the heroine and the hero drives the story. Their reactions to each other are at first defined by the losses they have suffered and their present struggles: the death by malaria of William’s wife and the killings of his aunt and uncle, plus his own lack of progress at Nynabo; as well as the death of Mary’s brother on her operating table in a field hospital in France, and her fight for professional recognition among men determined to treat her as a member of the weaker sex and therefore a problem. Mary and William’s conflicting expectations and strong, goal-oriented personalities result in palpable tension on every page. What is more, the tension is never contrived but grows naturally from the situations they face and the choices they make, which in turn makes makes their actions understandable and believable even as the knots tighten around them, worsening their problems. The intricate plotting of the relationship, which acknowledges their attraction to each other but takes a levelheaded, practical path rather than a romantic one, is perhaps the book’s greatest strength. It far surpasses the skill of the average debut author. Together with the organic and meaningful examination of their actions and beliefs from a spiritual standpoint this makes for a compelling and inspirational relationship development with a shy dash of sweetness at the end to lift the romance into demure bliss.

 

I wish I could finish by concluding that The Doctor’s Mission is an impressive and memorable debut by an author with mature writing skills. Those things hold true, but only partly. Unfortunately their import is severely diminished by coming stamped with a large caveat lector.

 

Past reading experience inclines me to believe that almost any set-up can be redeemed from the dangers of typecasting by thoughtful, layered writing. Quite a bit of planning and subject-specific research has evidently gone into the crafting of The Doctor’s Mission. Unfortunately, the portrayal of the indigenous peoples who inhabit the chosen setting has not benefitted from those efforts.

 

Around thirty years ago a kind-hearted and cosmopolitan teenage daughter of European career diplomats complained to me about the family’s servants in Africa: how lazy the black locals were, taking forever to do simple chores, and how stupid, always forgetting points of etiquette such as wearing white gloves when setting or serving at a table. I mention this because The Doctor’s Mission reminded me of the lesson that girl drove home: blind spots related to people of other cultures and countries crop up in the most unexpected places.

 

For a quick idea of the nature of the trouble with The Doctor’s Mission, one might picture caricatures from a pre-WWII cartoon of African jungle natives, or perhaps a campy silent era film complete with a staccato piano score to emote tension as hostile, spear-wielding tribal villagers led by a lecherous chieftain threaten a feisty white woman, pale with distress, while the valiant, morally upright, broad-shouldered white hero plots her rescue. Rinse and repeat, this time with knife-wielding cannibals doing the threatening. Only the awful comedy of ethnic stereotyping in The Doctor’s Mission hardly has the same excuse for blinkered ignorance that one might at times claim for authors of the aforementioned eras.

 

Highlighting a few text samples should show the extent of the problem. This is not an exhaustive list.

• Primitive living conditions and hostile surroundings are a danger specifically to white women: “A shock ran clear down William’s spine. A sturdy-looking woman of about forty years, but a woman nonetheless. What were they thinking? Had his last venture into the interior not proven Nynabo unsafe for the fairer sex?” Although another female colleague in the less remote Newaka sensibly reminds him that generations of women missionaries have worked in Liberia, the fragility of white women in the jungle is a steady theme of William’s world view. While his white female co-workers force him to re-examine this belief, the complete exclusion in their ongoing debate of any mention of the indigenous women who actively inhabit the same space frames the latter as not only irrelevant but invisible. The exception is when they provide a foil for North American/European competence or morality. Indigenous women in the novel exist to be rescued (Anaya, Nana Mala’s wife), pitied (the female Kru villagers), and feared (Mammy Tarloh).
• Here is the very first entry on the scene of non-white characters, a group of porters: “Three shiny black torsos covered in little more than sweat and grass cloth entered the compound through the open arch” (p. 10). This is the full extent of the description of the local members of a caravan arriving to Newaka (Nyaaka/Nyyake) with supplies from the coast (presumably the port town of Harper/Cape Palmas) in a scene that devotes several paragraphs to describing the two white female mission workers who arrive with them, carried in hammocks, and has in the preceding pages given rounded outlines of two other white, minor characters. It is also interesting to compare the fictional representation with the photo (below) of a real-life caravan in the Liberian interior, taken in 1928.
• The introduction to one of two prominent secondary characters, this one a local of Kru ethnicity who on the trek to Nynabo is the head porter: “Hannabo had returned with his catch dangling over his shoulder. ‘[William:] I see you have had good hunting.’ Hannabo grinned. ‘Yes, Nana Pastor. I got a fine monkey. We eat soon’” (p.32).
• The first description of villagers living along the trail to the mission station: “All of [the villagers present] were deferring to the one native in a worn black bowler hat and bright red loincloth standing with his arms folded across his chest, a chest hung with some decorative type of necklace. Must be the chief” (p.44).
• The first glimpse of the women in this village, which is “unfriendly” (p.44): “ [Children mentioned.] Of the five women present, presumably their mothers, although there was little doubt about the one who was nursing, expressions ranged from wary to curious to downright hostile on one thin woman with blue cloth covering her modesty while she stirred the pot. Without exception, the rest of the women wore nothing more than a cloth skirt fastened about their waists and a small fetish bag [Mary]’d come to expect hung around their necks. Mary found herself gawking and forced herself to take her eyes off the uninhibited display of uncovered skin. Even as a physician, the nudity discomfited her” (50-1). Despite the inclusion of this reaction, the subject of nudity does not form any part of Mary’s character development.
• William’s attitude toward Hannabo, a friendly local whose official position at the mission station is never clarified but who appears to be a general helper: “William immediately cheered at the sight of Hannabo. Hannabo was the living legacy of [William’s] uncle’s work, proof a heart could be turned from the darkness of superstition and witchcraft of the bush” (138); “This primitive bush man believed. [...] For all my learning, it is one with a childlike faith who teaches me” (229).
• Hannabo expresses his opinion of Mary: “The Mammy Doctor, her medicine was strong. First she cured the evil of the sasswood and now the shaking sickness [=malaria]. Father God made her a powerful healer.” William corrects him: “’Yes, well, God uses the science of man to save the body. Still’, he admonished, ‘it is God who does the healing. It is in his hands whether we live or die.’” In response, “Hannabo looked puzzled” (138).
• When William falls ill during work on readying the mission station for the rainy season, (in a scene not shown) the local labourers immediately prepare to desert the project since they fear they may not be paid. Hannabo’s account of events: “Without Mammy Doctor, we could not have continued. The workers were about to disappear into the bush but she stopped them. Because of her powerful medicine they listened” (139).
• Mary and the labourers: “Every time she set foot out the door, the men sought her approval or wanted her direction in their work, especially Jabo” (144); “Jabo pointed at the pile [of building materials] with some pride. Ah, approval was what he wanted. Approval and recognition. ‘Jabo, this is marvelous. I am so proud of how you’ve kept the work going while Hannabo helped me tend the pastor’” (144). While the story later provides a specific reason for this deference, this is one of numerous instances that view relations between whites and blacks from a narrow, colonial perspective and beg the question what that dynamic is doing uncritiqued in a 21st century narrative. Are Mary and William mistress and master of a plantation or are they apostles of Christ? As representatives of the heavenly kingdom, the symbolism of their names adds a further, suggestive dimension.
• When Mary changes her trousers for a skirt, Hannabo comments on her looks to William, who confesses to Mary: “Well, if you must know, Hannabo speculates you’d bring many oxen to your father from a suitor. I’d guess the change in attire prompted him to comment on your beauty” (150). William, too, reacts (p.16) to Mary’s physical attractiveness (as she does to his, p. 13): “she was even more beautiful than his beloved Alice”. No person in the book calls the looks of any adult Liberian/Kru/Pahn beautiful or attractive. Here are details from the one complimentary description I found, of the amiable head female of the Kru village nearest Nynabo mission station, Mammy Lehbo: “At the far end sat a majestic older woman [...] Her nose was narrow by tribal standards and her lips full and lush. Her keen brown eyes spoke of the intelligence within. [...] A queen and her court” (170-1) The not so amiable head female of the Pahn village, Mammy Tarloh, is introduced thus: “At the far end of the room sat an enormous woman. She had to be at least three hundred pounds” (249). (Details of adornment follow, but no additional description of her features .) And: “Some would call [Mammy Tarloh] a queen, but it was hard for Mary to think of it that way” (248).
• William is frustrated when the labourers refuse to heed him: “How did you convince men who’d lived their whole lives around the teachings of the bush school? Who’d been indoctrinated from an early age in witchcraft, devilmen, and all the animistic beliefs of their country” (166).
• Mary’s reaction to being informed of the approach of a group of men from the Pahn people, led by the husband of one of her patients; ‘Nana’ appears to be a courtesy term for men of a certain rank (William is called Nana Pastor): “You know, there’s far too many Nanas around here for me to keep track of. And then, one is friendly, one is not. And now one is Pahn, whatever that means. The only thing these Nanas have in common is they are hard on the women in their lives” (p.182).
• William’s reaction when Mary (in what appears to be a unique moment of inter-cultural sensitivity) suggests that he is treating the villagers like children: “I do no such thing. I deal with ignorance, that’s all. They need correction from their heathen ways. If that sounds a little like a parent talking to a child, disciplining them, correcting their mistakes, so be it” (203). (See plantation comment, above.)
• William’s internal impression of the “devilmen”, the only term used in the novel for the indigenous bodio or high priests/ritual priests: “Their garish tattoos made quite a spectacle, but today they’d pulled on the full regalia” (p.213); “Evil in greased braids and a face of implacable hatred glared at him” (214).
• A tense confrontation sees locals scuttling off for safety, with only William and both converted Christians standing fast: “William’s party of men quickly broke apart when they reached the village. The chief disappeared like cook-fire smoke on a windy day.” (211).
• Description of the “fetish house” (medicine house) that guards the entrance to the village closest to the mission station: “It was a small mudded and thatched structure covering the idol. The idol was clay sculpted into the semblance of a squat, misshapen little man with no legs, a symbol of ancestral spirits” (211).

 

In the sections that deal with the setting and its indigenous peoples The Doctor’s Mission is strangely indistinguishable from period literature about the “Dark Continent”. (Not only the views reflected about locals and their culture but much of the contents of The Doctor’s Mission make the story read like a jungle adventure penned in the 1920s, complete with all the expected props: treacherous rivers, cannibals and other assorted hostile, “brown bodies”, impenetrable vegetation, white ants, a trouble-prone, porcelain-complexioned (p.11 ), redheaded heroine, and hard-muscled, tall, knows-the-ropes hero, etc. In fairness, the physical characteristics of the couple are just as typical of romances today.) Thus, a period authenticity that could have provided constructive historicism had the narrative led a dialogue with these perceptions becomes wholesale Othering in its absence. Liberia is reduced to a theatrical stage for pushing a message that sensationalises difference through images of brutal exoticism.

 

That the setting despite its centrality to the plot is a subject or a backdrop rather than an active participant is observable in the attitude of William and Mary to their surroundings. Not once during the journey to the mission station, a section that takes up nearly ninety pages (27-115), does Mary proactively inquire about the people among whom she will be working, about their lives and customs. William does not share lessons learned or anecdotes or information that would demonstrate personal interest in the people whom he hopes to draw into the Church, nor does he engage on an individual level with the carriers, porters, or guards other than to “bark orders”. On arrival in Nynabo he does not go out and greet villagers after his absence to share and inquire after news but keeps to himself when he is not working on maintenance and repairs in the compound. There is no awareness on display of the importance for successful mission work to build bonds of trust and loyalty and friendship, or acknowledgement on the part of the story of identifying and adopting local ways of communicating and socialising, merely an emphasis on the avoidance of causing offense that would endanger the missionaries. Similarly, Mary is never shown interacting on a direct, personal level with a single local patient.

 

Any representation of the country and its peoples is filtered through foreign sensibilities. For example, discussions between William and Hannabo centre on the former teaching Hannabo about Christian thought. Nowhere in the novel is there a reciprocal discussion about the belief system or religion of the Kru (or the Pahn), an exchange which normally has crucial relevance for any missionaries seeking to establish a theological dialogue with a prospective flock.

 

Politics is a topic romances tend to avoid unless it is a historical that champions a cause that is generally embraced as self-evident today (for example, exploitation of child labour in Tessa Dare’s A Lady Of Persuasion, as well as sugar produced by slave labour). Depending on one’s point of view, any foreigner who travels to a country not his/her own with the intention of introducing change may be considered to be engaging in a political act or an act with political consequences; historically, too, missionaries have played a role, whether voluntarily or not, in promoting foreign interests in the territories they have settled in. In addition, while mission workers believe they are fulfilling a Christian obligation in helping to spread the Word of God, inhabitants in the regions to which they travel are as likely as not to regard them not as benevolent messengers but as intruders. It is therefore interesting to note that The Doctor’s Mission fleetingly introduces a known political issue only to dismiss it as nonsensical.

 

Here is a condensed historical note to provide context the novel does not. (I had to look up the historical information and would be grateful for corrections regarding any errors.) Ever since US settlement along Liberia’s coast in the early nineteenth century established a form of colonial rule by freed American slaves, indigenous peoples had been resisting this foreign-imported government. (Initial Christianising activities were also conducted by pioneering black missionaries as part of programs to develop the country along North American and European lines. There is no mention of them or other black missionaries in Debbie Kaufman’s story.) Only three years before the events in The Doctor’s Mission an uprising by the Kru had been defeated with assistance from an American warship. The clashes between the Americo-Liberian ruling elite and the indigenous peoples, who until 1980 were excluded from political power, continued with periods of armed conflict into the late twentieth century. Ethnic and religious oppression, condemned in a report by the League Of Nations already in 1930, contributed to the country’s two civil wars (1989-96, 1999-2003). In Kaufman’s novel, a Pahn leader voices suspicion that the missionaries form part of the government’s attempts to invade the interior and subjugate the independent native tribes there. In the novel, this concern is treated as paranoia, put in the mouth of an antagonist marked as villainous through his cannibalism, and summarily dismissed without discussion.

 

The rounded portrayals of William and Mary and the perceptive sketches of the three other white mission workers demonstrate the author’s ability to build nuanced, complex chararacterisations. Even on a purely writerly level this skill underscores how unworthy of Debbie Kaufman’s talents the typecasting of non-white characters is. The issue in question is not, for example, about disallowing Mary and William to be horrified about, say, cannibalism or to have negative reactions to customs they deplore, don’t understand, or believe to be unchristian. On the contrary, such reactions mark them as relatable human characters with virtues and flaws instead of cardboard Mary Sues. But unless characters of other cultures and ethnicities are depicted with the same attention to individuality and nuance, the authorial representation of them will reek of discrimination, prejudice, and bigotry. A narrative that juxtaposes unequally represented parties for the purpose of comparison loses the integrity of its message.

 

As I noted earlier in this post, an inspirational romance aspires to do more than to entertain. On one side The Doctor’s Mission achieves that goal in William and Mary’s journeys toward God and each other. But in infantilising and dehumanising indigenous people and in portraying their spirituality, in fact entire religions and cultures, as the face of evil, the creed the larger narrative promulgates ends up not Christ-like but sinister. As such, the attitudes on display in The Doctor’s Mission exemplify why in Africa missionary work has as often been the problem as it has been the answer. The polarisation is painfully ironic, too, when one considers the efforts of the Liberian peace and reconciliation processes to address the root causes (p.16-19) behind the country’s devastating civil wars, among them ethnic intolerance. It is to be regretted that Harlequin and Kaufman apparently did not consult any of these memoranda.

 

*Considering that the Great War ended in November 1918 and that Mary's brother died in the Argonne forest, presumably during the offensive fought that same autumn, I would have expected the story to open in 1919, but 1918 is the year stated on page seven (the month is not given).

 

Non-fiction of related interest: Tribes Of The Liberian Hinterland by George Schwab and edited by George Harley, missionaries and field investigators, is an ethnographic survey. Based on a Peabody Museum (Harvard) expedition begun in 1928, it partially includes the Kru/Grebo/Bar(r)oba peoples of the south-eastern interior, where The Doctor’s Mission appears to take place (going by the map, above, in the Garlock book, below, approximately present-day Maryland County, along the border with Côte d’Ivoire). Among the many subjects treated that may be of interest to readers of The Doctor's Mission are fetishes, cannibalism, and medical practices. The complexities of the former and the existence and successful application of the last are distinctions The Doctor’s Mission ignores unless it is to uniformly relegate any belief in remedies or medicine not gained through European/North American science to the realm of superstition and witchcraft. The Mask of Anarchy: The Destruction Of Liberia And The Religious Dimension Of An African Civil War by Stephen Ellis (New York University Press, 2001) delves into the historical reasons behind Liberia’s wars through an examination of the interplay between politics, religion, culture and ethnicity. Before We Eat And Kill You by Ruthanne Garlock is based on the diaries and other materials belonging to US Pentecostal missionaries Henry B. Garlock and Ruth Garlock, who in the early decades of the twentieth century worked in Liberia; this is the book cited by Debbie Kaufman as inspiring The Doctor’s Mission. And as two of the three recipients of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize are from Liberia, I cannot think of more relevant books than theirs to represent Liberian voices: Mighty Be Our Powers: How Sisterhood, Prayer, And Sex Changed A Nation At War, co-authored by peace and women’s rights activist Leymah Gbowee (with Carol Mithers), and This Child Will Be Great, a memoir by the country’s president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.

Fiction of related interest: For those looking for fictional representations of missionaries in Africa Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible is perhaps best known. For lighter fare, Tamar Myers's mysteries The Witchdoctor's Wife and The Headhunter's Daughter are set in the Belgian Congo (later Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) (Kingsolver's novel partially uses the same setting) of the late 1950s and feature missionary Amanda Brown. I harboured the same hesitation about Myers's books as I did about Kaufman's, but the review and comments by Sarah Johnson at Reading The Past changed my mind. The first book in the series had been languishing in my TBR stack, but my reaction to The Doctor's Mission has caused me to move it to my nightstand in the hope that it will indeed explore a difficult subject from a more thoughtful point of view (Myers was born in the country she writes about).

 

This is my fifth and final entry in the Romance Reading Challenge, hosted by naida of The Bookworm. Thank you, naida and all other participants, for inspiring me to read a diverse range of romances this year!