A Sense of Direction

February 20, 2012
A young writer seeks a cure for his fecklessness by following roads very much taken in this scintillating travel memoir. After floundering in Berlin’s entropic bohemia—equal parts pretentious art opening and woozy after-party—Lewis-Kraus embarked with a friend on the 500-mile pilgrimage of Santiago de Compostella in Spain. Its route marked with imperious yellow arrows, the trek offered “pointless direction” toward the sacred that temporarily eases his anxiety over what to do with his life, as well as sweltering death marches, gory blisters, and an international cast of oddball penitents. His pilgrimage itinerary continues with a circuit of 88 temples on the Japanese island of Shikoku—a lonely ordeal of cold rain, tasty rice balls, and piquant Buddhist legends—and a trip to a Ukrainian Hassidic shrine accompanied by his father, an ex-rabbi turned flamboyant gay demimondaine. The author’s resolve to undergo a comparably epic inner journey sometimes causes the narrative to bog down in navel-gazing and excessive palaver about his testy relationship with his dad. Fortunately, Lewis-Kraus’s vivid descriptive powers and funny, shaggy-dog philosophizing carry readers past the rough patches. The result is an entertaining, thoughtful portrait of a slacker caught up in life’s quest for something. Agent: Tina Bennett.

May 1, 2012
Peripatetic ruminations on the meaning of life and finding a sense of direction accompany Lewis-Kraus across three very different countries. Whatever one's reasons for undertaking the Camino de Santiago--spiritual, touristic, to lose weight, or just for the opportunity to complain about the blisters--the experience is memorable. For the author, a freelance essayist, the trip began as a spontaneous diversion, a chance to temporarily leave behind the tediousness of everyday life and reconnect with a friend who similarly had too much free time. Sardonic discussions about the meaninglessness of blindly following an ancient footpath seamlessly give way to nuggets of personal insight both sacred and secular, and Lewis-Kraus was moved to follow the trek with a Hasidic pilgrimage to Ukraine and a circuit of 88 Buddhist temples in Japan. Pilgrims, beyond "look[ing] at each bus going by with the affection Robert Frost had for woodpiles," spend much time deep in conversation about subjects as diverse as giraffes, the apostles and the "lazy geographical determinism of Northern Europeans." However, the humor and the physical torment mask an inner journey through the realm of relationships, aspirations and the soul. Using the not-entirely-dissimilar legends and disciplines of Catholicism, Judaism and Buddhism as a spatial framework and scenic background, Lewis-Kraus explores the subtle impulses that drive people to follow certain paths. High-minded flights of intellectual fancy, however, are only so much use when the physical world, in the form of "a flatulent mixture of schwitz and acrid stewed kasha" intrudes. Thought provoking and engaging in the style of Bruce Chatwin or Paul Theroux, with ample sides of Thomas Merton and Augusten Burroughs.

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December 1, 2011

Having moved to Berlin for its anything-goes environment, Lewis-Kraus opted for more structure by accepting a friend's invitation to walk the Camino de Santiago, the 1000-year-old pilgrimage route across Spain. Subsequently, he visited all 88 Buddhist temples on the Japanese island of Shikoku by himself and the tomb of a celebrated Hasidic mystic with his father and brother. Described by Gary Shteyngart as Eat, Pray, Love as if written by David Foster Wallace; media interest is perking, and I can't wait to see.

Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

April 15, 2012
Camino de Santiagosense of purposeJune 10. With this napkin-scribbled note, refound after a debaucherous weekend with a friend and fellow writer, nonreligious son of two rabbis Lewis-Kraus begins his first pilgrimage. With the implicated friend, he walks across Spain for six weeks and several hundred kilometers to the presumed location of the remains of Saint James the Greater, an experience so alternately infuriating and fascinating that he intends to do another. This time alone, he walks a longer, colder ring around the mountainous Japanese island Shikoku, retracing an ancient henro and visiting its 88 temples associated with Buddhist monk Kobo Daishi. Finally, with his brother and father, the author travels to Uman, a village in Ukraine where Hasids flock for Rosh Hashanah. Physically, Lewis-Kraus' feats are staggering, but more so is how fully and fluidly he recounts them, alongside meditation on his own youthful anxieties and a well-synthesized history of the act of pilgrimage. Whether readers find Lewis-Kraus' journeys inspiring or insane, most will identify with much of what he discovers by simply following the signs or arrows on well-worn paths.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)