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Drowning in butter and bacon fat: Eating and writing my way through New Orleans

Behind the Book by Michael Murphy

For mythological heroes “the call” comes as they are just entering manhood. I was rushing toward my 60s and trying to re-direct my life after 30 years in book publishing had hit a dry patch, a dry patch the size of the Sahara Desert. Maybe the Kalahari. I don’t want you to think I’m prone to exaggeration. In my rearview mirror, I’d been a vice president at Random House, the publisher of William Morrow, and established my own literary agency, Max & Co. In front of me were roughly sewn-together jobs as a tour guide, a concierge, ghost writer, barely a literary agent, receiving a few paltry royalty checks while failing to sell any new book projects. All of these piecemeal jobs, really gigs, were not so much to keep me afloat as to drown at a more leisurely pace.

“The call” usually comes in the form of a burning bush, or at least in the middle of the night. Mine was an email. On a Tuesday. The Norton sales department wanted an update of Eating New Orleans, a restaurant guide written by Pableaux Johnson in 2005. He didn’t want to do it. Ann Treistman, a senior editor at Norton and a former editor at Morrow (maybe she was an associate editor back then—I don’t want you to think I’m prone to exaggeration), (A) knew my love for New Orleans, (B) knew I could write. As an agent I’d sold her a book where we both learned my author couldn’t deliver a full manuscript so I jumped in. And (C) it wasn’t hard to detect my love of food. I tell people I’m the same size as LeBron James, just a foot shorter.

"At the time of Katrina, there were 809 restaurants in New Orleans. At the time I’m writing, there are 1,389. No other city has experienced this explosive growth of restaurants over the past eight years. I think no other city is so food obsessed that they actually count their restaurants each week."

I was pleased to read her email request, excited about the idea of getting an advance to drown at an even less hectic pace, but uncertain. Does the world need another book about New Orleans and food? I went to Amazon.com, brought up the books category, typed in “New Orleans food” and stared at 1,544 entries. Would there be anyone left to read my 1,545th entry? Then, I typed in “vampires” and saw 35,604 entries. Maybe.

My bigger concern was not if there was a market, but who am I to write a food book in this city of so many superior chefs, restaurants and critics? I hardly have the pedigree of an official foodie. I grew up in the Midwest in the 1950s and ’60s, raised on Shake ’n Bake and Chicken in a Biscuit.

On the one hand, a hand filled with vainglory, I felt “destined” to write this book. I first came to New Orleans in May of ’83 to work with an author, and by day two, I knew I was home. At first, (The Hook) was the physical beauty of New Orleans, all the cracked plaster and balconies ”sagging like rotting lace” (I steal that from Walker Percy). New Orleans looks like nowhere else in America. The second wave (The Line) was the people. People here are remarkably friendly and will bring you in on a very deep level very quickly. The third and love-you-forever wave (And Sinker) is New Orleans’ cray-cray history, filled with bizarre events and twisted stories. I tell anyone who will listen, “New Orleans is as far as you can get from America, and still be in it.”

Through a few traded emails, my editor, Ann, and I decided a mere update of Eating New Orleans wouldn’t do well in the current market. With Urbanspoon, Trip Advisor and Yelp, there’s no longer a need for a book that describes restaurants. We decided the new book, Eat Dat New Orleans, would be built around stories. And that perfectly fits New Orleans where everyone has a story to tell, and they’re really good at telling them.

In profiles for restaurants like Galatoire’s, Eat Dat would be light on its history since 1905 and its signature dishes like Crab Maison and Trout Almandine, and instead focus on waiter John Fontenot, who’s been serving food, drink and a steady diet of cornball Cajun jokes since shortly after the Earth cooled. John would ask diners at what level of bawdiness (1 to 10) they would like their jokes during dinner. I’d write about the time Charles De Gaulle visited New Orleans. When he tried to call for reservations and was told Galatoire’s did not accept reservations, the French president complained. “Do you know WHO I am?” They replied “Why yes, Mr. President. But, do you know WHERE you’re calling?”

The next big hurdle, and it was a major one, was to decide which restaurants to include and which to leave out. At the time of Katrina, there were 809 restaurants in New Orleans. At the time I’m writing, there are 1,389. No other city has experienced this explosive growth of restaurants over the past eight years. I think no other city is so food obsessed that they actually count their restaurants each week.

To include all restaurants would require a book the size of the old two-volume Oxford English Dictionary. I decided to stay within the city limits. Choosing the final list would test my integrity. What to do about Acme Oyster House, Cafe du Monde and Mother’s? These are far and away the most popular spots for tourists, recommended by every cab driver and tour salesperson huddled in a kiosk booth. But for most of us living here, they are no better than a local version of Applebee’s or T.G.I. Friday’s. They feel about as must-do as going to Vegas to hear Wayne Newton sing "Danke Schoen" one more time. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with Acme and Mother’s, it’s that we can do so much better. A simple rule in New Orleans is that if you see a line waiting to be fed, don’t go.

I signed my book contract in mid-May. My manuscript was due September 15th. Forget about an intense writing schedule, that’s a whole lot of eating in a very short time. And this was New Orleans’ eating. Here we offer Praline Bacon at Elizabeth’s, Maple Bacon donuts at Blue Dot Donuts, Buckboard Bacon Melt at Cochon Butcher, Quail stuffed with Boudin, wrapped in Bacon at Atchafalaya, Bacon, duck and jalapeno poppers at Borgne, the Oysters Slessinger, grilled with Bacon, shrimp and Provel cheese at Katie’s, and for dessert, Praline Ice Cream with Bacon at Green Goddess. By the end of writing my first draft, I had gained 12 pounds and looked like a bearded Shelley Winters impersonator, or as I think they prefer to be called, Shelley Winters “tribute artists.”

My four-month journey through our culinary landscape also introduced me to many new favorite restaurants like Maurepas, Casa Borrega and Killer Poboys, renewed my vows to love and honor older restaurants where I’d eaten long before there was a book contract, and reminded me, in so many ways, why I love New Orleans.

Food here is not nutrition, it’s a lifestyle. It’s an art.

Having accepted “the call,” I am now in “the yelling” phase. My book is on the shelves. I’m doing all the usual things to let readers know it’s there: four bookstore signings, two panel discussions, annoying email blasts, shoutouts to meetup groups, an author page on Amazon and a Facebook page for the book. I was thrilled to get over 170 Facebook "likes" on Eat Dat’s first day. But then I saw that Jesus Christ had more than 12 million likes. The Beatles have more than 38 million. (John Lennon was right.) And Justin Bieber has 63 million. Competing with 1,544 other books about New Orleans food seems a lot less daunting than competing with Justin Bieber’s likes.

Michael Murphy, a book publishing professional, has been a vice president at Random House, publisher of William Morrow, and founder of the literary agency Max & Co. By day two of his first visit to New Orleans in 1983, he knew he was home. He finally moved to New Orleans in 2009 and will never leave.

 

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read our review of this book.

For mythological heroes “the call” comes as they are just entering manhood. I was rushing toward my 60s and trying to re-direct my life after 30 years in book publishing had hit a dry patch, a dry patch the size of the Sahara Desert . . . “The call” usually comes in the form of a burning bush, or at least in the middle of the night. Mine was an email. On a Tuesday.
NonfictionMystery & SuspenseFictionTravelSportsShort StoriesPoetryNatureEssays

Surveying the best of the best in 2000

Review by Joanna Brichetto

Readers in search of the best new writing in America need not search far. Trustworthy editors have scrutinized a year's worth of publications in nearly every field to cull the finest short stories, sports writing, mystery stories, essays, travel writing and poetry for new anthologies. Each collection may be enjoyed as a satisfying end in itself or as a convenient introduction to new or unfamiliar writers.

Grand Master Donald E. Westlake has assembled a fine collection in The Best American Mystery Stories 2000. Offerings range from Shel Silverstein's nimble "The Guilty Party" to Robert Girardi's gritty shocker "The Defenestration of Aba Sid." As in the other categories of Houghton Mifflin's Best American Writing Series, the editors provide a kind of runner-up list of distinguished stories (with sources) for interested readers to track down.

The Best American Essays 2000, edited by Alan Lightman, is another diverse grouping, characterized by struggles with "truth, memory, and experience. Writers range from notable newcomers like Cheryl Strayed, a graduate student at Syracause University, to Wendell Berry and Cynthia Ozick.

For compelling short fiction, turn to The Best American Short Stories 2000. Edited by E.L. Doctorow, it offers the finest short stories chosen from American and Canadian magazines. New works by Annie Proulx, Walter Mosley and Raymond Carver are balanced by relative unknowns like Nathan Englander, whose authority and imagination make "The Gilgul of Park Avenue" a real heartbreaker.

The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2000 is the first in what promises to be a remarkable series. Oliver Sacks, Wendell Berry (again) and Peter Matthiessen are some of the acclaimed writers represented. Paul DePalma's kvetchy "http://www.when_is_enough_ enough?.com" is a delightfully depressing plea to examine the Faustian bargain we strike with our own personal computers.

Another new addition to the Best American Series is The Best American Travel Writing 2000, edited by Bill Bryson. Readers are in safe hands with a guy whose last three travel books have been blockbuster bestsellers. Bryson's hand-picked 25 stories are predictable only by being unpredictable and engrossing. Take "The Toughest Trucker in the World" by Tom Clynes, about a man whose daily grind involves 18-foot alligators, leeches and some of Australia's harshest terrain. Or "Lard is Good for You" by Alden Jones, a coffee-starved gringa trying to go native in a small Costa Rican village.

The Best American Sports Writing 2000 has been delivering dramatic, thought-provoking pieces to fans for 10 years. Particularly interesting are the stories about lesser-known sports like machine gunning, curling, poker and cockfighting. The definition of "sport may be open to discussion, but the quality of writing is not.

In Best New American Voices 2000, an eclectic group of short stories has been sifted from the fertile ground of the most prestigious writing programs in the United States and Canada. It is the inaugural effort of a new series and ideal for lovers of cutting-edge fiction. No celebrated authors here, just those who promise to be groundbreakers.

Finally, in The Best American Poetry 2000, Rita Dove has distilled the finest work of her colleagues. Good poems are already distilliations of the complex chemistry of thought and feeling, so this book more than any other in the bunch gives us "the voice that is great within us. From the unnerving confessions of A.R. Ammons's "Shot Glass," to the radical refashioning of faith in Mark Jarman's "Epistle," to the sustained aria of discovery in Mary Oliver's "Work," this is the innermost country of America, and it is our country at its best.

Joanna Brichetto is on BookPage's list of best reviewers.

Readers in search of the best new writing in America need not search far. Trustworthy editors have scrutinized a year's worth of publications in nearly every field to cull the finest short stories, sports writing, mystery stories, essays, travel writing and poetry for new…

Travel

Railroad dreams

Review by Roger Carp

Louis D. Rubin, Jr., shares a delightful tale of his professional coming of age amid the closing of a wondrous era in American railroading in his latest book, A Memory of Trains. A retired journalist and professor of Southern literature, he shares stories and photographs that illuminate the years after the Second World War.

After being discharged from the military, Rubin returned home to South Carolina, hoping to embark on a career in journalism. Over the next few years, his plans changed as he worked on local papers in New Jersey and Virginia.

All the time he was writing and editing articles, Rubin was indulging a lifelong passion for trains. Primarily, that meant spending leisure hours taking photographs of steam and diesel locomotives, crack passenger trains and unheralded freights in a variety of eastern and southern states on an assortment of railroads. Adding poignancy to Rubin's account is the fact that, as he came to realize, a significant period was drawing to a close in the 1940s and '50s. The demise of the steam locomotive, replaced by the sleeker and more efficient diesel, coincided with the general shift in travel away from the train.

Changes in travel brought social and cultural changes that transformed America, the author's native South in particular. The sense of isolation that characterized the towns where Rubin lived and worked was breaking down. Soon the small papers he knew so well would vanish, swallowed up by regional and national chains. And the railroads he admired would lose their identities through mergers.

While chronicling these momentous changes and lamenting much of what was being lost, Rubin also describes his own coming of age. We see him gain confidence in his writing, endure loneliness before meeting the woman he marries, and decide to leave journalism for college teaching.

Dozens of the author's photos accompany the well-written chapters. A Memory of Trains will leave readers saddened by all that disappeared when railroads lost their grandeur, but they will appreciate the memories this autobiography stirs.

Roger Carp is on the staff of Classic Toy Trains magazine.

Louis D. Rubin, Jr., shares a delightful tale of his professional coming of age amid the closing of a wondrous era in American railroading in his latest book, A Memory of Trains. A retired journalist and professor of Southern literature, he shares stories and photographs…

NonfictionFictionWomen's FictionTravelHistoryCrafts, Hobbies & HomeBlack HistoryBiography

Black History Month: A symphony of varied voices

Review by Robert Fleming

With the arrival of Black History Month comes the expectation of a host of African-American books, geared not only to that unique, highly creative community but to the general population as well. Mainstream publishers now understand that there is a large readership waiting for books that reflect African-American issues and concerns, so it is not unusual that the bookshelves are full of new volumes during the month of February. In the roundup that follows, we at BookPage have selected a precious few of the large collection of books currently available.

Fiction

Some African-American literary critics often lament the alleged lack of gifted young black novelists coming up, mistakenly comparing the young lions to legends such as James Baldwin, Ralph Ellison, Toni Morrison, and Alice Walker. However, the emergence of such talents as R.M. Johnson, the author of the acclaimed The Harris Men, has quieted many of the naysayers. His latest novel, Father Found, chronicles the obsession of Zale Rowen, founder of Father Found, an organization that finds absent dads and forces them to fulfill their emotional and financial obligations. Zale's zeal for a social cause costs him dearly, bringing him to serious illness and crisis in this timely, disturbing novel that is certain to win Johnson much attention.

Venise Berry's All of Me follows her best-selling debut, So Good, with a humorous, insightful look at America's obsession with weight as Serpentine Williamson, a Chicago TV reporter blessed with the good life, learns the importance of self-esteem when everything she holds dear is threatened. This is Berry at her best, wry and knowing, using a new twist on the triumph-over-adversity motif.

While veteran novelist Kristin Lattany may be best known for her most popular book, The Landlord, her new work, Do unto Others offers us a different side of the author with the absorbing story of Zena and her husband Lucious, whose world is rocked by the entry of an unpredictable young African girl into their household. The novel is a scathing reminder of the futility of racism, the assumptions of Afrocentrism, and the occasional absurdity of political correctness.

The notion of May/December romance gets a fresh coat of paint in Patty Rice's novel Somethin' Extra, when Genie Gatlin, who specializes in safe married men, meets David Lewis, a man 30 years her senior. He shows her the full range of love and commitment, despite her fears and doubts. Rice writes with a candid, realistic view of amour that pulls very few punches.

Jeffrey Renard Allen's exceptional debut epic, Rails Under My Back, tells the complex story of the lives and loves of two brothers, Lucifer and John Jones, and their wives, Gracie and Sheila McShan. This multilayered, intricate fable delves deep into the themes of love, survival, responsibility, and trust, as the choices of the parents bear unforeseen consequences for their children. Sweeping, experimental, and rewarding.

Nonfiction

Call him an intellectual, call him an activist, Harvard University professor Cornel West is a man who defies category with an encyclopedic mind that is stumped by no topic or realm of study. His stand-out collection of social commentary, memoir, interviews, and essays, The Cornel West Reader, attests to his prowess as cultural analyst and academic philosopher-theologian with its astute observations on everything from Marxist theory and black sexuality to black-Jewish relations and rap.

A rare opportunity to enter the minds of three pivotal African-American leaders is presented by Dr. Sondra Kathryn Wilson, literary executor of the James Weldon's Johnson Papers and editor of In Search of Democracy: The NAACP Writings of James Weldon Johnson, Walter White, and Roy Wilkins 1920-1977. Every page of this collection of essays, reports, speeches, and editorials yields a wealth of information about this trio of extraordinary men.

Biographies of noted African Americans have become very popular in recent years, gaining both in quality and critical notice. Maverick social critic Michael Eric Dyson, currently Ida B. Wells-Barnett University professor and professor of Religious Studies at DePaul University in Chicago, has reinterpreted our common perceptions of civil rights Rev. Martin Luther King with his latest book, I May Not Get There with You: The True Martin Luther King, Jr. King, Dyson says, would have been a supporter of affirmative action, socialism, and a modest degree of separatism. In this controversial evaluation, the black spokesman was allegedly cynical about whites, believed America had spurned him, and suffered mightily from depression. This is a book destined to spark debate and a firestorm of criticism.

In the latest celebration of the genius of trumpeter Louis Armstrong, editor Thomas Brothers has sifted through the extensive archives of the master jazz horn man to compile Louis Armstrong: In His Own Words, an intriguing mix of letters, autobiographical sketches, magazine articles, and essays spanning Satchmo's long, eventful life. This assemblage reveals Armstrong to be a smart, clever wit, a master communicator, and a colorful human being with a heart as big as his musical sound.

With two competing books and a film on former boxing champion Rubin Hurricane Carter currently available, former New York Times reporter James Hirsch's Hurricane is one of the most engrossing takes on the ups and downs of the man who became an international cause celebre when wrongly convicted for the 1967 murder of three whites. Carter was later freed when evidence of police corruption was uncovered. Much care is taken in Hirsch's book to render Carter's spiritual and political transformation, as well as his lengthy legal battle.

Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., the director of W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African American Research, has been a very busy man. First he, with Lynn Davis serving as his photographer, has produced a wonderful travel book on Africa's hidden past, Wonders of the African World, following his journey through 12 of the continent's most beautiful countries. A companion to a PBS TV special, the book gets much of its distinctive flavor from Gates's inspired narrative, which is accompanied by 66 photos, seven full-color maps, and over 130 illustrations. Definitely an item worth having for anyone wishing to know more about the mystery that is Africa.

Possibly Gates's greatest achievement comes in his editing, with an assist from fellow Harvard Professor Kwame Anthony Appiah, of the landmark Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience. For anyone wishing to learn more about Africa or America, this resource fills the bill with over 3,500 entries, hundreds of maps, tables, charts, and photographs. Every conceivable topic, from culture to politics, is covered in detail and expertly cross-referenced in this incredible fount of facts, figures, and general information.

The release of the splendid African Ceremonies by writer Angela Fisher and photographer Carol Beckwith has been the subject of much talk in recent weeks. A spectacular visual treat, the book redefines the coffee-table volume with its breathtaking images and sensitive text on the daily ritual of tribal culture. What the book says so skillfully is that no matter how different the external trappings of regional life may appear, the age-old rites of passage remain essentially the same. National Geographic, eat your heart out.

Robert Fleming is a journalist in New York City.

With the arrival of Black History Month comes the expectation of a host of African-American books, geared not only to that unique, highly creative community but to the general population as well. Mainstream publishers now understand that there is a large readership waiting for books…

AudioTravel

Under the Tuscan sun again

Review by Carolyn Porter

Frances Mayes, the Peter Mayle of Italy, has done a difficult thing. Bella Tuscany, her second book is even better than her best-selling first. After seven summers of restoration, Mayes's beloved villa, Bramasole, needs only a few finishing touches and she can spend more time pondering The Sweet Life in Italy. Mayes looks at the world with an artist's eye and writes with a poet's lyricism; you see the verdant spring green that so enchants her, smell the lush roses, taste the fava beans fresh from the garden. As before, Mayes reads, and her Georgia-accented voice, now familiar, is a pleasure to hear again. If this doesn't make you yearn for an Italian idyll, nothing will.

Frances Mayes is, first and foremost, a poet. She once said, "When I wrote the last line of Under the Tuscan Sun, I wrote the first line of Bella Tuscany. I knew I was not through writing about Italy." She writes about the Tuscan countryside with such powerful description and sensuality, the reader is transported to the slow pace of Cortona, Italy, where one simply breathes, notices, and appreciates life's small pleasures.

Bella Tuscany continues the story of Frances and Ed's restoration of Bramasole, a 200-year-old Italian farmhouse, and their subsequent awakening to Italian culture. Every day holds a new adventure whether it be pruning olive trees, cooking mushroom ravioli, hosting house guests, traveling to Venice or Sicily, or browsing an antique market. Though Mayes is in Italy, the lesson to be learned here is that anyone, anywhere, can find amazement in the smallest object or in the most mundane place.

Mayes covers almost every aspect of Italian culture art, landscape, food, language, and history. She visits museums and reflects on the meaning and beauty of art. She buys old monogrammed linens and imagines who made them. She uncovers frescoes on the walls, wondering whose rough hands painted them. When she visits ancient monasteries she finds a spiritual kinship with those people who came before her. The sights and sounds of Tuscany often trigger Mayes's remembrance of her Southern roots, where she first realized this sense of place. The smell of lilacs or lavender in Italy take her back to her childhood in Fitzgerald, Georgia.

Bella Tuscany urges the reader to form an appreciation for the sometimes overlooked enjoyments of life from dipping weary feet in a cool Etruscan fountain on an August day, to sipping an afternoon cappuccino in a sidewalk cafe. The book evokes a series of images, paintings that capture the essence of the green, sweet, slow life in Italy. It is for anyone who has ever desired the romance of a faraway place or longed for a season of renewed possibility.

Frances Mayes, the Peter Mayle of Italy, has done a difficult thing. Bella Tuscany, her second book is even better than her best-selling first. After seven summers of restoration, Mayes's beloved villa, Bramasole, needs only a few finishing touches and she can spend more time…

NonfictionFictionTravelSelf-HelpHumorHistoryFamily & Relationships

For the love of all things Irish

Review by Sharon Chance

With St. Patrick's Day approaching, a widely varied batch of Irish-themed offerings are appearing on the bookshelves. For all those who are a wee-bit Irish, and for those who long to be Irish, the following books represent the best of the bunch.

Take seven of Ireland's most famous storytellers, give them a great subject such as an infamous Dublin hotel, then stand back and see what magic they're able to spin. The result in this case is the delightful novel, Finbar's Hotel. This cooperative project, devised and edited by best-selling Irish author Dermot Bolger, includes the literary efforts of Roddy Doyle, Colm Toibin, Jennifer Johnston, Hugo Hamilton, Anne Enright, and Joseph O'Connor. Each lends a distinctive, imaginative flair to individual chapters as the overall book explores the varied guests on the final night in the life of a dingy urban hostelry. A bestseller in the United Kingdom, Finbar's Hotel gives Americans a chance to experience a side of Ireland not often seen.

St. Patrick, the Patron Saint of Ireland, stands out as the most familiar and beloved of all the saints, and the most recognized symbol of all that is Irish. In his book, The Wisdom of St. Patrick: Inspirations from the Patron Saint of Ireland, Greg Tobin presents a treasury of St. Patrick's inspirational observations. Topics include St. Patrick's own views on grace, faith, prayer, and honesty; a commentary on his life and times; contemplations on how St. Patrick's words apply to modern, everyday life; and finally, a meaningful prayer relevant to each passage. Tobin seeks to prove how the powerful, charismatic words of the remarkable saint are just as relevant today as they were more than a millennium ago.

More than 44 million Americans claim Irish ancestry, but how many really understand that heritage, and the many contributions Irish Americans have made to this country? The amusing and informative May the Road Rise up to Meet You: Everything You Need to Know About Irish American History by Michael Padden and Robert Sullivan is written in a lively question-and-answer format and covers every aspect of Irish history from the first Irishmen back on the Emerald Isle to contemporary Irish Americans who are making their mark in the world today. (Who would have guessed that General Colin Powell is of Irish descent?) With a foreword by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. (a heavy-duty endorsement in itself), this one is an absolute must-have for every son and daughter of the auld sod, or anyone interested in Irish history.

For a more humorous look at Irish traditions, authors Sean Kelly and Rosemary Rogers offer How to Be Irish: Even If You Already Are. This whimsical guide includes tongue-in-cheek advice on How to Talk, Look and Act Irish, How to Eat and Drink Irish, and How to Vote Irish. Cute illustrations, including cartoons, photos, charts and graphs, along with hilarious quizzes and lists make How to Be Irish the perfect book to take to St. Patrick's Day parties.

Ireland, that glorious isle of emerald green, has inspired writers for centuries. They write of its beauty, its mystery, and its wonder. In The Reader's Companion to Ireland, edited by Alan Ryan, 19 authors, both present and past, share observations on travels through this incredible land.

From Michael Crichton's Dublin experiences while filming The Great Train Robbery in the 1970s, to Chinese author Chiang Yee's reflections on walking down O'Connell Street in the 1940s, this collection of delightful vignettes will enhance any traveler's journey (whether armchair or actual) to Ireland.

Sharon Galligar Chance is a book reviewer for the Times Record News in Wichita Falls, Texas.

With St. Patrick's Day approaching, a widely varied batch of Irish-themed offerings are appearing on the bookshelves. For all those who are a wee-bit Irish, and for those who long to be Irish, the following books represent the best of the bunch.

Take seven of Ireland's…

NonfictionTravelHistory

The Moth and the Mountain

Review by Alden Mudge

Ed Caesar’s irresistible book The Moth and the Mountain tells two essential stories. Its primary story is an account of Maurice Wilson’s ill-fated 1934 attempt to be the first solo climber to summit Mt. Everest. Wilson is barely a footnote in Everest climbing history, usually derided as a grandiose dilettante whose widely publicized ambitions were not only absurd but fatal. And yet, as he promised, the traumatized, highly decorated World War I officer did learn to fly, did elude British colonial authorities seeking to ground his efforts at every turn, did pilot a biplane to India (despite an absurdly wrongheaded takeoff), did sneak across the border into Tibet dressed in the elaborate garb of a suspiciously tall holy man and did climb to substantial heights on Mt. Everest.

The important second story Ed Caesar tells is about his own obsession with solving the mysteries of Maurice Wilson. What gave Wilson his bold determination? Was it his desire to romance Enid Evans, his supposed “soul mate”? Caesar, a terrific writer and a contributor to the New Yorker, introduces us to Enid this way: "Enid was slim, winsome, brown haired, stylish, vivacious, and married. Wilson was cripplingly in love with her, and not just because of her faith in his mission."

Or might it be because of Wilson’s wartime trauma? Wilson, the son of a provincial textile manufacturer, was not of the right class to be a British officer. But the decimation in the trenches of the war led to his elevation to leadership. He performed heroically and, as a result, experienced physical and psychological torments for years. Were these wounds what led him to try to prove himself on the mountain?

The frustrating thing for Caesar and for us is that some of life’s questions are unanswerable. Enid’s letters to Maurice are lost, presumably destroyed by her husband. Caesar discovers a relative of Wilson who reveals some information but says, provocatively, that other bits will go with him to the grave. The Moth and the Mountain has many, many riveting moments of storytelling and insight, and yet, some answers to the mystery of Maurice Wilson remain shrouded in the mists of Mt. Everest.

Ed Caesar’s irresistible book The Moth and the Mountain tells two essential stories. Its primary story is an account of Maurice Wilson’s ill-fated 1934 attempt to be the first solo climber to summit Mt. Everest. Wilson is barely a footnote in Everest climbing history, usually derided as a grandiose…

NonfictionTravel

Pravda Ha Ha

Review by Charu Sinha

Early in Pravda Ha Ha, author Rory MacLean notes that “we all like a good story. We all need a narrative for our lives. The most potent stories give us an idea or individual to believe in, as well as someone to blame when things go wrong.” This thesis sits at the core of MacLean’s book, which otherwise defies categorization. Part travel journal, part oral history and part political treatise, Pravda Ha Ha ultimately raises more questions about its subject matter than it answers. But the idea that people of all backgrounds use storytelling to bind communities together and tear them apart is a steady throughline in MacLean’s work. Interestingly, MacLean suggests that he uses narrative for this purpose, too.

Pravda Ha Ha is MacLean’s account of a recent journey across Eastern Europe—from Moscow to Berlin and ultimately back to his native Britain—which mirrored a similar trip he took from Berlin to Moscow back in 1989 as an idealistic young writer. That original trip follows him like a grim shadow throughout the book. The optimistic ideals of liberalism and democracy that inspired him in 1989 seem to wither in the face of the current bleak realities of Eastern Europe. MacLean observes with sorrow and considerable anger the greed and corruption that have taken over the countries he once traveled across as a hopeful young man. In doing so, he asks us to consider how idealism and hope are sometimes not enough, especially in the face of powerful, wealthy interests.

If this all sounds a little dense and bleak, be assured that it doesn’t come across as such. MacLean’s book is immensely readable. The history and politics of Eastern Europe are tackled here with humor and dry wit. MacLean is not writing a textbook but rather a series of richly detailed anecdotes about his experiences. This is perhaps the major fault of the book: MacLean assumes that his experiences of Eastern Europe are universal. His experience of Russia, for example, as solely corrupt and hopeless may not necessarily be fair to the people who actually make their lives there.

However, this might also be a lesson of the book. Memory, MacLean suggests, goes a terribly long way to shape the way we view the world around us. In other words, memory becomes narrative, and narrative becomes the deciding factor in who writes history, and how. Pravda Ha Ha, in this way, is less a history of Eastern Europe than it is a history of Rory MacLean, and there are certainly worse histories you could read.

Rory MacLean’s immensely readable, humorous account joins two parallel journeys across Eastern Europe—one in 1989 and one in 2019.
NonfictionTravel

A bird’s-eye view of America

Review by Sheila M. Trask

The road trip. The Wright Brothers. What could be more American?

How about putting the two together?

Husband-and-wife team James Fallows and Deborah Fallows did just that, flying their small, single-engine propeller plane back and forth and up and down the United States over five years and 100,000 miles, a journey they document in Our Towns. When the couple set out in 2012, they expected to find problems and poverty, and they did. But as they continued to set down in a wide variety of cities, towns and backyards, they were also struck by the resilient spirits of the people.

The chronological approach to this narrative can be frustrating at first—readers may wish the authors had reported on the towns by topic or by geography, rather than traveling from South Dakota to Maine in the first year, then starting over in South Carolina the next. In the end, though, being able to make discoveries with the Fallows as they go from place to place is part of the book’s charm. On any given page, you might find yourself wandering the halls of an innovative community college in Mississippi or sharing a beer with millennials at a bar in San Bernardino, California. In between stops, the Fallows’ bird’s-eye view reveals the visual contours of the country, from street grids to agricultural feedlots to collections of backyard swimming pools.

Co-authoring a travel memoir can be tricky, but the Fallows team pulls it off like the professionals they are. James has been a national correspondent for The Atlantic for over 30 years, and Deborah is the author of Dreaming in Chinese: Mandarin Lessons in Life, Love, and Language. In alternating sections, each writer demonstrates certain strengths—Deborah, with her eye for local color, will make you smell the potluck Easter banquet they happen on in Georgia, while James will show you around the remains of the Mack Trucks plant in Allenstown, Pennsylvania. Together, they paint a rich picture of a complex country in this finely detailed love letter to America.

The road trip. The Wright Brothers. What could be more American? How about putting the two together?

NonfictionTravel

Two men walk into the jungle

Review by Becky Libourel Diamond

In The Last Wild Men of Borneo, author Carl Hoffman (Savage Harvest) tells the alternating stories of two bold and fearless men: Bruno Manser from Switzerland and American Michael Palmieri. Comparing and contrasting the two, Hoffman compellingly explains what drove them to seek a life of daring exploration.

Both traveled to a variety of intriguing locales, including Beirut, Kabul and Thailand, and they eventually ended up in tropical Borneo, the world’s third largest island. Home to parts of Malaysia, Indonesia and the tiny sultanate of Brunei, Borneo’s terrain is not the lush jungle typically associated with a hot, steamy climate, but rather an “ancient primary landscape of hardwood trees soaring one hundred feet tall.” Both Manser and Palmieri were drawn to the beauty and mystery of this unusual island, particularly the sacred cultures of its people and “romantic notions of their power.”

Although the two men were different in almost every way, in Palmieri’s words, they were “both obsessed.” Manser ventured deep into the dense rainforest and essentially went native, living among the Penan people and leading a fight against the logging and mining companies destroying the pristine forest. Palmieri also journeyed far into the rugged terrain, ultimately becoming a tribal art dealer and collector. They were each trying to save this land and its culture in their own way. But while Palmieri ended up with a comfortable lifestyle, Manser mysteriously disappeared without a trace in 2000.

Hoffman charts the engrossing backstory of both men, and through meticulous research, interviews and personal visits, he paints a vivid character portrait of the two adventurers while detailing the incredible splendor of the unique region. The Last Wild Men of Borneo is an exciting tale of Borneo’s rich history and two modern-day treasure hunters who followed their dreams.

 

This article was originally published in the March 2018 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

In The Last Wild Men of Borneo, author Carl Hoffman (Savage Harvest) tells the alternating stories of two bold and fearless men: Bruno Manser from Switzerland and American Michael Palmieri. Comparing and contrasting the two, Hoffman compellingly explains what drove them to seek a life of daring exploration.

NonfictionTravelMemoir

Bovine love

Review by Alice Cary

“It’s true that at first I laughed at drinking cow urine but feed me a good story and I can believe anything,” writes author Shoba Narayan. Indeed, she feeds readers a good story in her udderly delightful The Milk Lady of Bangalore.

When Narayan, her husband and their two daughters moved from New York City back to the couple’s native India, Narayan was no doubt looking for something to write about. She found it right in the elevator of her new apartment building: a cow riding up to the third floor for a housewarming ceremony, led by its owner, Sarala, a woman who sold raw milk. Hindus consider cows sacred, and India has what Narayan calls a “cow obsession.” Soon this obsession rubs off on her, turning her into “an evangelist for fresh cow’s milk.”

Sarala led the author straight into a herd of often funny and always fascinating bovine adventures, including drinking cow urine (supposedly a curative), mixing a cow dung-yogurt concoction as fertilizer, falling in love with a red cow with “eyes the size of oval macaroons” and even briefly owning a cow before donating it to Sarala.

There’s plenty of heart and soul in this book as Narayan takes readers on a unique tour of her Indian neighborhood, where there’s never a dull moment. Narayan is an astute observer, particularly of herself, noting: “The reason I want to buy milk from a cow is because I am trying to recapture the simple times of my childhood, particularly after the intricate dance that I have undertaken for the last twenty years as an immigrant in America. Milk is my way of reconnecting with the patch of earth that I call home.”

 

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read a Q&A with Shoba Narayan for The Milk Lady of Bangalore.

This article was originally published in the February 2018 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

“It’s true that at first I laughed at drinking cow urine but feed me a good story and I can believe anything,” writes author Shoba Narayan. Indeed, she feeds readers a good story in her udderly delightful The Milk Lady of Bangalore.

NonfictionTravel

A home of one’s choosing

Review by Alice Cary

Kushanava Choudhury, the child of two scientists from India, spent his childhood moving back and forth between India and the U.S. Although he was born in Buffalo, New York, it was Calcutta that captured his heart. When Choudhury was 12, his parents finally left the city for good for Highland Park, New Jersey, and Choudhury’s world was changed forever. As he explains in The Epic City: The World of the Streets of Calcutta, “All those cricket matches, all the pleasures of my childhood were taken away . . . I lost the capacity to be fully myself.”

Choudhury kept returning to Calcutta—as a student and summer intern at a city newspaper, and then as a recent graduate of Princeton, and again after earning a Ph.D. in political theory from Yale. His beloved city beckoned him back again and again.

As the city’s rich and varied history swirls about him along the lively streets and sidewalks, Choudhury is not blind to the city’s shortcomings, calling it “the devil’s city” and “one big pisspot.” No matter―the author remains an adept, wonder-filled and thoughtful tour guide. He has experience in this matter, as he must convince his wife, Durba, of Calcutta’s charms. Durba, a fellow Ph.D. student at Yale, grew up in modern New Delhi and despises Calcutta.

Readers grow to understand Calcutta’s complexities and contradictions as Choudhury explains its history and introduces neighborhoods and inhabitants. The Epic City is most compelling when he explores his own past, taking us to his grandmother’s house for her funeral and showing us the two-room house where his father (one of 13 children) grew up.

Despite Calcutta’s difficulties, Choudhury’s passion never wanes. As he so eloquently concludes: “We human beings are not meant to live exclusively indoors. We need to hear the symphony of the street, feel the pavement at our feet. The life outside our door beckons us to a destiny larger than the lonesome murmurs of our souls.”

Kushanava Choudhury, the child of two scientists from India, spent his childhood moving back and forth between India and the U.S. Although he was born in Buffalo, New York, it was Calcutta that captured his heart. When Choudhury was 12, his parents finally left the city for good for Highland Park, New Jersey, and Choudhury’s world was changed forever. As he explains in The Epic City: The World of the Streets of Calcutta, “All those cricket matches, all the pleasures of my childhood were taken away . . . I lost the capacity to be fully myself.”

NonfictionTravel

A threatened way of life

Review by Carla Jean Whitley

BookPage Top Pick in Nonfiction, January 2018

All the Van Gujjar tribe wants is to maintain their ancient way of life. For centuries, the forest-dwelling, nomadic Indian tribe has spent winters in the jungle and summers in the Himalayas, where the water buffalo they herd find abundant food and a break from blazing heat. But in recent years, the country’s national park system has challenged their way of life. People aren’t meant to live in preserved lands, the park system argues. The Van Gujjars should stay out.

That tension is central to Himalaya Bound, in which writer and photographer Michael Benanav recounts one Van Gujjar family’s 2009 migration from the forests to the mountains. Benanav spent 44 days alongside the family as they traveled 125 miles and encountered 11,000 feet of elevation gain—by foot.

The days are long and, in many ways, simple as the tribe presses toward its destination. But there’s dramatic tension at the heart of the journey. Will the family be able to summer in its ancestral land, in what is now Rajaji National Park? Or will officials hold true to their word and ban the tribe?

As Benanav describes his experience traversing these miles, he offers a deeper understanding of the family’s troubles. India isn’t alone in questioning the notion of people in national parks; America has done the same, also challenging indigenous peoples’ right to their tribal lands. The argument is often made in the name of conservation. But as Benanav reveals, the relationships between humans, land and animals aren’t quite so easily explained.

Benanav deftly weaves scientific and historic context into the story of one family and one migration. As he does, he also shares an American’s perspective of this radically different way of life. The result is a compelling, thoughtful tale that encourages readers to examine their lives and impact upon the earth.

 

This article was originally published in the January 2018 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

All the Van Gujjar tribe wants is to maintain their ancient way of life. For centuries, the forest-dwelling, nomadic Indian tribe has spent winters in the jungle and summers in the Himalayas, where the water buffalo they herd find abundant food and a break from blazing heat. But in recent years, the country’s national park system has challenged their way of life. People aren’t meant to live in preserved lands, the park system argues. The Van Gujjars should stay out.

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