Dispatches from the Cowgirl: Through the Looking Glass with a Navy Diplomat's Wife

by Julie Tully

Overview

Would you move to Africa?

For Julie Tully, a cowgirl who married a United States naval officer, the answer was a no-brainer: Yes!

Leaving her career and everything she knew behind to follow her husband, Julie was rapidly approaching forty and wondering, "What is my place in the world?" Enter Africa, the continent she had dreamed of since childhood, a chance to reinvigorate her life. A supposed two-year assignment for her family in Sub-Saharan Africa soon turns into an eight-year adventure in Cameroon, Nigeria, and Djibouti and sees Julie become an unofficial diplomat as wife to a military attaché. In a world where diplomacy is key, Julie becomes the person she was meant to be.

Julie's memoir is a real-life Alice in Wonderland tale. A cowgirl falls into Africa like Alice fell into Wonderland, taking you on a voyage of discovery and into the little-known world of an American military spouse serving amongst the world's diplomatic corps. One moment, you'll laugh out loud as Julie takes her first step onto the African continent and begins setting up their home in Cameroon. The next, you'll gasp in shock as a terrorist bomb shakes their house in Nigeria.

Part travelogue, and part midlife coming-of-age story, Dispatches from the Cowgirl takes you to the Africa that Julie experienced. Complete with all its beauty and flaws, it's the Africa that continues to capture the attention of the world's military powers and the Africa she struggled to say goodbye to.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781956906264
Publisher:	W. Brand Publishing
Publication date:	09/13/2022
Pages:	336
Sales rank:	425,648
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.75(d)

About the Author

Cowgirl-turned-nomadic navy spouse, Julie Tully writes about life, culture, and the places where they intersect. Julie's writing has appeared in Legacy Magazine, InDependent, and Your Teen for Parents. Her quirky lifestyle has taken her around the world, from rural Northern California to Europe and Africa. Now, after spending the past eighteen years overseas, Julie and her family prepare for an even greater adventure-returning to the United States.

Editorial Reviews

07/25/2022

Tully’s memoir captures her extraordinary experience of living in Africa as the spouse of a naval diplomat in vivid detail. When Tully, whose life began as a cowgirl on a ranch in California, leaves a lucrative career to join her husband as he follows his, she eventually finds herself a stay-at-home mom worlds away. After postings in England and Germany, Tully is excited when her husband John is sent to Cameroon, in in Sub-Saharan Africa. Though this was considered a tough posting, Tully’s family jumped at the chance because of their love for Africa. This love remains undiminished through subsequent postings, including Nigeria and Djibouti.

A genuine interest in people and the culture of the host nation make Tully’s memoir heartwarming. Despite the challenges of settling into a place and culture alien to her, she is forever willing and excited to meet new people, embraces learning about their lives and challenges, and possesses the self-awareness to remember that her position is a privileged one, with minor problems in comparison to the larger world. As life progresses, Tully enthusiastically takes on more responsibilities, such as planning, organizing, and attending social events in addition to her roles of mother and wife. She’s charming, as is the book, which emphasizes the unpaid and often unrecognized labor and sacrifices of women in similar positions worldwide.

Tully’s uncomplicated and clean prose, laced with gentle humor, narrates in engaging detail the travails of their frequent moves, describing their sometimes exotic and sometimes mundane life in Africa. She is forever aware that her experience of the local culture is limited to living inside a diplomatic bubble, and although it’s billed as a mixture of travelogue and coming-of-age transformation, the memoir only scratches the surface of Tully’s conflicts and self-doubt. Still, this is a fascinating account of one woman’s journey around the earth.

Takeaway: A heartwarming memoir about life in Africa as a diplomat’s spouse.

Great for fans of: Brigid Keenan’s Diplomatic Baggage: The Adventures of a Trailing Spouse, Cherry Denman’s Diplomatic Incidents.

Production grades Cover: A Design and typography: A Illustrations: N/A Editing: A Marketing copy: A

BookLife Reviews

Dispatches from the Cowgirl is a well-written personal memoir of an American family's experience in Africa. Told in short anecdotal chapters it highlights the truism that home is where the heart is and...there is enough incident and personal detailing to provide a valuable insight into the life of a military family abroad. -IndieReader

Tully's memoir captures her extraordinary experience of living in Africa as the spouse of a naval diplomat in vivid detail. She's charming, as is the book...this is a fascinating account of one woman's journey around the earth. -BookLife/Publisher's Weekly

From the Publisher