Gail Gutradt, a photographer and freelance writer in Maine, had just attended to her mother during her year-long losing fight with cancer. In her late 50s, she was adrift and depressed with "a sense of uselessness... fresh out of ideas" when a colleague suggested that she ask former Vietnam War medic Wayne Dale Matthysse to accept her as a volunteer at Wat Opot, a community in Cambodia he founded to shelter and care for HIV/AIDS-afflicted and orphaned children. In a Rocket Made of Ice is Gutradt's story of how this orphanage saves and nurtures young lives--and how it saved and nurtured hers. It is part memoir, part biography of the Wat Opot children, part photo journal and part how-to for philanthropists seeking to make a difference--"to walk into the chaos of a post-apocalyptic country and wrest from the devastation a small island of compassion and comity."
In a digression to recount Matthysse's own troubled personal journey through postwar wandering, Gutradt admits that the Cambodian community he founded works well partly because he is not only a stern and compassionate father to the children but also something of a benevolent despot. Yet Gutradt also admires his simple philosophy of success: "Just start where you are, and do what you can, and don't let yourself be paralyzed by the naysayers."
During the time between her four extended visits to Wat Opot, Gutradt was diagnosed with breast cancer. Suffering through her treatments, she came to appreciate even more the strength of the children she cared for. Neither sentimental nor solicitous, Gutradt's memoir is a compassionate window into both their lives and hers. --Bruce Jacobs, founding partner, Watermark Books & Cafe, Wichita, Kan.