A Wedding in Samar: An American Love Story

In 1962, John Halloran stepped from the Neptuno onto the island of Samar in the Philippines. Thus began his two years as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Bobon, a remote place that became for him "the center of everything," home to people he would hold dear in his heart for the rest of his life. Published posthumously, A Wedding in Samar is rich with the everyday detail of how John and his roommate learned to live in a place where at night "the darkness was total," where there was "no electricity, no water system, no automobiles, no movie house, no pianos (there was one we discovered later), and no public market where fresh meat and fish might be had. But there were dozens of people - adults and children - that John came to love, including an attractive Filipina school teacher.