PositiveOutside\"... [a] forceful debut ... Clark’s finely wrought, deeply reported, and highly empathetic account is a human-level testament to dignity in the face of loss and a stoic adherence to cultural inheritance in the face of a rapidly changing world ... Clark’s prose soars, sometimes a little too high—things evanesce, sunsets fume, the stars are a heavenly chandelier—but that’s a small quibble. There are just as many lovely turns of phrase ... Furthermore, Clark’s sympathy for and devotion to his subjects is real: he speaks both Indonesian and Lamaleran and fosters an intimacy that allows him to disappear entirely in the telling of their story ... For the most part, Clark successfully depicts these people in their full human complexity rather than as primitive tropes ... His sympathetic view also glosses over certain less savory aspects of the village’s traditional way of life: the capriciousness and grinding poverty of the subsistence lifestyle, the rampant drinking and smoking, the curtailed life expectancy, and, more recently, the alleged trafficking of wildlife parts to the lucrative Chinese market.\
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay[/caption]
