Fast Times in Palestine

February 25, 2013
Olson didn't come to the Middle East from Eastern Oklahoma directlyâshe earned a degree from Stanford firstâbut she still had little world experience when, "green and wide-eyed, wandered into the Holy Land, an empty vessel." Her innocence, if partly an affectation, helps her navigate the surreal and morally ambiguous rules of the Occupied Territories with relish and warmth for the people she meets. As she travels throughout Israel and Palestine, she adopts as her own the travails and daily rhythms of her hosts. The political and ethical conclusions she draws are sometimes prosaic, but her emotional response to the unending conflict and subsequent difficulties is genuine. More than a travelogue or a polemic, the book is a coming-of-age story, as Olson discovers her voice by directly confronting the challenges of living in a state of institutionalized paradox. She finds a place for herself in Palestinian society, becoming an advisor to Mustafa Barghouthi, the long shot presidential candidate. Engaging and easy to read, this is a fascinating memoir of adaptation and acculturation, and of the unexpected bonds connecting disparate cultures.

February 15, 2013
A moving memoir of a young woman's political awakening under occupation. Having lived an unusually sheltered life even by American standards, Olson was dangerously naive when she first arrived in Jordan. Curious about what the situation was really like, beyond the confusing headlines, and attracted by the "chance to witness history as it was being made," she nearly chartered a taxi to Baghdad before she was convinced to head to the West Bank instead. A fortuitous decision, this unplanned voyage led the author to connect with a diverse and generous group of individuals navigating the daily challenges of security patrols and checkpoints. Spending much of her time in Jayyous, a small farming community not entirely dissimilar to the Oklahoma town where she grew up, Olson lived in Palestine for more than two years, quickly adapting to and assimilating the shifting reality on both sides of the Green Line. In warmhearted, evocative prose, she recounts her numerous adventures, from the everyday (harvesting olives, attending weddings) to the more unusual (her work as an adviser to Mustafa Barghouthi as he ran for president of a nonexistent country). She never entirely lost her air of the ingenue, and her political analysis is sometimes debatable, but the strength of the narrative lies in Olson's investigation of the personal and mental effects of oppression and war on herself and her newfound friends, "the atmosphere of mute shock expressed only in sidelong glances...of knowing something few people knew, and of genuine connection and collective struggle." Where paradox is as common as breathing, Olson discovers a kind of freedom amid the barbed wire. An empathetic, intriguing memoir.

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