Aruba: Loving Natalee

 

 

LOVING NATALEE

by Beth Holloway

 

 

 

 

I can't seem to write this blog piece about Beth Holloway's Loving Natalee.  What can you say about a book that tells the story of a promising young woman's disappearance and her heartbroken mother's painful journey to find her and eventually, to reconcile the mystery of her loss?  I've written, revised, scrapped the whole thing, started over, puzzled about it, and am still stuck.

It's hard to imagine anyone not being familiar with the Natalee Holloway tragedy, but in case you're not, Wikipedia offers as good as summary as any.  What you should know about the book is that while it isn't the most well-written piece of writing, it's gut-wrenching exploration of Beth's pain and helplessness followed by her strength and determination pretty much supersedes any critique you may otherwise feel compelled to offer.  It just doesn't feel right.  So I'm not going to do it. 

I'll be honest.  I selected this book because there were literally no others set in Aruba that I was willing to read.  I spent a lot of time searching, using all of my standard book-finding resources as well as my good friend, Google.  Some biblio-circumnavigators don't even include Aruba in their list of countries so I couldn't use other blogs.  There are Aruban writers, of course, but apparently their books are published in Dutch or Papiamento, not English.  I found a couple of Young Adult novels, several books in what seemed to be the "bodice ripper" genre of romance, and a series of quasi-mysteries by Daniel Putkowski, an American writer who spends half of his time in Aruba and feels at home there.  I tried a few chapters of Daniel Putkowski's An Island Away, but I found the characters unappealing from the onset so I abandoned it quickly.  And when my Facebook plea for recommendations went unanswered, I decided to read Beth Holloway's tribute to her beautiful daughter, who disappeared during her senior trip to Aruba.  

 

You should read this book if you are curious about how things work (or don't work) in Aruba's justice and legal system.  Take note of Beth's excellent advice at the end of the book when she talks about how to be safe while traveling outside of the United States.  She's not complimentary about the State Department (which I found to be unfair ... full disclosure: I have been a vice-consul at two overseas posts and spent many years working in Washington in support of American citizens who encounter difficulties while traveling).  But she does get it right when she says that once you're outside of the United States, things work differently and U.S. officials' ability to influence a foreign government is often quite limited.  And it's okay that she's angry about this.  In fact, she's earned the right to be angry about whatever she wants to.  I'd be remiss though if I didn't take this opportunity to say here that vice-consuls around the world do great work for Americans, and we are so fortunate that our U.S. passports grant us significant support and advocacy when we are overseas.

You should also read this book if you are curious about how the mother of a lost child keeps standing.  Beth takes us on that journey with her, from shock to anger to determination to crippling grief to resolution.  Her family, friends, and faith get her through to where she is now.  She writes a lot about hope and is an amazing example of how someone use their personal tragedy to do something good in the world. 

Beth Holloway writes about what's commonly accepted as life's most unthinkable loss.  Her book succeeds in making the Holloway family real, something that news stories often fail to do since we read about them or watch news stories on tv from the comfort and safety of our own homes where it's easy to think "that will never happen to me."  But it did happen to Natalee ... and it's still happening to Beth and the rest of their family.  I suspect it will never end.