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Mary Hanford Bruce
 
In large part, Dr. Sally accepts a Fulbright assignment to teach American Literature at a university in Yaoundé, Cameroon, Africa to get away from her past and find herself.  She feels a strange attraction to Dr. Ako Ibo, professor of neocolonial literature and a writer.  Slowly, surely, she is drawn into his sphere of influence, falling under his spell.  Strongly disbelieving in magic, she nevertheless falls hopelessly in love with Ako.  By the time she realizes she is an unwitting tool in the planned assassination of President Biya, she is already seeking escape from Ako.  Now she must elude authorities searching for her, and find a way to flee from the country and save her life.

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Here’s what established writers are saying about this brilliant first novel by Dr. Bruce, professor of English at Monmouth College in Illinois:

“…bold exploration of a woman adrift in Africa, caught in the turmoil of her own defeated past and in the possibilities offered by her current swirls of chaos.  It’s a compelling story, told with authority and grace.”
Fred Leebron
Author of Out West, Six Figures, and In the Middle of All This


“…a maiden novel rife with compact, memorable word pictures.”
J. Dwight Dobkins
Co-author of Winnie Ruth Judd: The Trunk Murders
 

“…refreshing, well-told story written with a combination of force and sensitivity that captures the wondrous complexities of Africa, its people, and the precious vulnerability of the human experience.”
Freddie Lee Johnson III
Author of Bittersweet and A Man Finds His Way
 

“…an incomparable source of information on the African experience. After reading the book, I felt as if I had been on a trip to Cameroon.”
Alma H. Bond, Ph.D.
Author of 10 books, including Who Killed Virginia Woolf?
 

“In Dr. Sally, Mary Hanford Bruce has created a complex character as driven by her need for love as she is by her desire to grow.  The African jungle is a rich landscape for the desperate search for self-awareness.”
Dr. Kathleen DeGrave
Author of Company Woman
 

This is what J. Clayson, BaHons of Cambridge, England, said after reading the author’s manuscript:  (Clayson is a former bookstore owner in the UK.)
“Daring and exhilarating, Dr. Bruce’s exciting first novel provides rare and profound insights into the workings of the African mind.”

_Nearly everyone who has read Dr. Sally’s Voodoo Man has remarked about Dr. Bruce’s ability to create compact, memorable word pictures.  Here are some examples:
 

• She couldn’t tell if it were the wine or a memory, but she felt heavy, like air before a storm.
• At home the evening spread before her like a vacant hall, where if she called her name, echoes from the past would answer.
• Greens of all descriptions hung like feather dusters from bamboo poles among clattering, chattering women.
• Her head throbbed at the back of her skull, further back than she dreamed a mind went. 
• What’s the use of a candle if it has no darkness to shed?
• She had a hole in her understanding.
• She felt a tap and swirled around to see a wrinkled woman, who looked like tobacco in a hand-rolled cigarette paper.
• She tried to get up, but her spine forgot to support her.
• Clothes dropped from her like petals.

Mary Hanford Bruce

Award-winning poet Mary Hanford Bruce explores her awakening consciousness and shares her pain and insights she experienced both in the United States and in the Third World. The original print edition was published after her two years as a Fulbright Scholar in Cameroon, Africa. She is known for her ability to say much in a few words, whether it is showing sorrow, loneliness, pain or wonderment.

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Mary Hanford Bruce's poems and stories have been published in the United States, Brussels, Israel, Cameroon and Zimbabwe. The second edition of her poetry collection, Holding to the Light, was released early in 2003.

Dr. Sally's Voodoo Man is her first novel, inspired in part by her two years as a Fulbright Scholar in Cameroon. The award-winning poet is Professor of English at Monmouth College, Illinois where she teaches Creative Writing. She has two more


Dr. Sally adventures in the works:
 
Dr. Sally’s Mossad Man
Dr Sally’s Muscovite Man

Her latest book is a memoir, Swimming at Villa Hugel. It will be released by a Germany publisher in 2012.  This is how she introduces that work, which is of high post-World War II historical interest:
 
I remember Germany when the buildings were rubble, the country split by four nations and both conquerors and conquered hungry. Yet, as a ten-year-old thrust into post-war wrangling over the assets of Alfried Krupp, Hitler’s financier, I was hungry for understanding, not food.  For two fateful years I played in Villa Hugel, Krupp’s palace, where the allies had offices, so was “the fly on the wall” during international decision-making.  As I played Jacks in the Great Hall, I sensed confusion and evil underlying smooth diplomatic surfaces. When the mission crumbled because of a desperate move by our government to mitigate Cold War threat, I felt sad but not surprised.
 
The author was born in Washington, DC and brought up in Europe and the Southwestern United States.
 


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