The Wonder Trail

May 1, 2016
The author's travels from Los Angeles to Patagonia.In this disjointed mashup of travel writing, travel guide, history, and comic memoir, Hely (How I Became a Famous Novelist, 2009, etc.), who has written for 30 Rock, The Office, and the Late Show with David Letterman, chronicles his rushed journey through parts of Mexico and Central and South America on his way down to Patagonia. The author claims his motivation for this adventure was his insatiable hunger for travel. "Every chance I got I went someplace interesting," he writes. "Cuba, Vietnam, India, Dubai, Texas. None of it fixed whatever wanderlust or curiosity monster was eating me....Now I couldn't stop thinking about going south to the bottom of the map." This is an odd, choppy book, and though readers may not doubt the truthfulness of the information, the narrative is a jumble of anecdotes, random facts ("a Panamex ship can carry fifty-something thousand tons of cargo, it can be 965 feet long and 106 feet wide"), brief history lessons, and quick-fire accounts of Hely's stops in Central and South America. In his brief, episodic chapters (all 102 of them), some less than a page long, the author tries hard to extract every comic or ironic detail that surfaced throughout his journey, but the humor often misses the mark. Though vivid commentary occasionally shines through--the chapters on the Galapagos Islands are particularly insightful--there's very little connective tissue between chapters. Hely provides a generous list of travel-related titles to consult prior to embarking on such a trip as well as a short appendix of his favorite travel books by female writers; readers may want to skip directly to this final section. A disappointing book considering the ambitious journey that was undertaken and the potential for engaging a wide range of curious armchair travelers.

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Starred review from June 1, 2016

TV writer (30 Rock; American Dad!) and author (How I Became a Famous Novelist) Hely's fast-paced, informative, and funny Los Angeles-Patagonia travelog packs in an impressive amount of information about each country he visits, despite his disclaimer that the book won't delve too deeply into current social and environmental issues. Instead, the author touches lightly on history, natural beauty, travel companions, and locals he befriends, as well as the food, beer, and hallucinogenic drugs he samples, all told with his trademark flippancy. His comparison of a remote Nicaraguan border station with experimental theater is gut-bustingly funny, as are his astute characterizations of fellow explorers, his forthright opinions of a few UNESCO World Heritage sites: "The ruins of Old Panama are...well, they are not amazing, let us say," and his lighthearted approach to dangerous places (he assures us that Mexico City is "not too stabby"). But Hely is not so jaded that he can't express genuine wonder, as expressed in his descriptions of the ancient Mayan murals at Bonampak and his voyage to the Galapagos Islands. VERDICT Hely's hilarious descriptions of the stunning sights and quirky people he encounters along the way will delight experienced globetrotters and armchair travelers alike. The helpful indexes may inspire further research. Highly recommended.--Erin O. Romanyshyn, Frances Morrison Central Lib., Saskatoon, Sask.

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