A Tooth in My Popsicle: And Other Ebullient Essays on Becoming Filipino

About this book

What happens when an award-winning American journalist leaves California for the southern Philippines to begin again?After losing his longtime job at the Los Angeles Times and growing weary of rising costs and life in the United States, David Haldane and his Filipino wife, Ivy, make a radical choice: leave America behind and build a new life in Mindanao, the place she once called home.What follows is funny, moving, bewildering, and unforgettable.In these lively personal essays, Haldane writes about culture shock, family, faith, food, marriage, immigration, construction disasters, tropical setbacks, island beauty, and the daily surprises of becoming part of a world that is at once foreign and deeply welcoming. Along the way, he and Ivy renew their vows on Siargao Island, build a dream home overlooking the sea, navigate illness, bureaucracy, power outages, parenthood, and the emotional complexity of starting over in another country.Warm, witty, and deeply human, A Tooth in My Popsicle is a memoir-in-essays about love, reinvention, cross-cultural marriage, and what it means to find home in an unexpected place.Perfect for readers who enjoy travel memoirs, expat stories, cultural essays, and humorous nonfiction about rebuilding a life abroad. Read more

About the Author

David Haldane is an award-winning American journalist and author with homes in Southern California and Northern Mindanao, Philippines, where he writes a weekly column for The Manila Times. A former Los Angeles Times staff writer, he has contributed to two Pulitzer Prize-winning stories and won a Golden Mic award for radio broadcasting. Haldane has published four books including a memoir, short story collection, and two essay collections recognized by the National Indie Excellence Awards, Next Generation Indie Book Awards, and Maxy Awards. These days he spends most of his time with his Filipino wife and their two children in the home-with-many-windows they built next to a lighhouse overlooking the sea.

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