Hanging Out The Washing (Two Stars)

I want to begin this review by talking about what is RIGHT with this book.

First, it is about Ingrid Price, who has an excellent story to tell. Price grew up as Ingrid Scheil in Nazi Germany. She had the extreme misfortune to be "liberated" by the Red Army in 1945 (i.e., raped) and was sent by the Red Cross to a psychiatric hospital in England. Having overcome the horrors she was subjected to she was fortunate enough to fall in love with a British soldier and start a new life.

Second, it is about parachuting, a great sport and one few people will ever even try. The trials and tribulations of skydiving make for great stories.

Finally, it takes place in 1960s Africa, when there was a lot of social and political changes taking place. It would be hard to find a better backdrop for a story.

Unfortunately, we now have to talk about what is wrong with the book. Grammatically, there are numerous examples of punctuation missing or misused. Spellings of some words and proper names are inconsistent or simply wrong. Paragraphs are not consistently spaced or formed. Some words and phrases are italicized for no good reason that I can identify. Overall, the text feels as if it was written as a "stream of consciousness."

Not only that, but several magazine articles from Sport Parachutist are reproduced in total. This would not be such a big deal but the text of the articles are often already incorporated in the narrative, giving the reader a distinct feeling of deja vu.

The layout reuses several photos at different points in the book. Photos do not have consistent captions. Some photos are of too poor of a quality to be reproduced. The covers, however, are excellent.

I believe that at the very least this should be a 4-star book. For that to happen would require the following:

1. Editing the existing text.
2. Reorganize the book so it flows better, perhaps with the 1st chapter taking place in Nazi Germany and "liberation," the 2nd chapter in England and the full story of Ingrid's first jumps, and so on.
3. Background information on the different parachutes used at the time, how students were trained with static lines, delayed openings, how new sport parachuting was at the time, etc.
4. Good background information on the state of Africa at the time, the rise of the "presidents for life," etc.

I sincerely think this is a great story waiting to be better told.