Undress Me in the Temple of Heaven

December 1, 2008
Youthfully upbeat, Gilman (Hypocrite in a Pouffy White Dress
) delivers an entertaining memoir of her ill-starred attempt to circumnavigate the globe after college graduation in 1986. Eager to embark on life but unsure exactly how to do it, the author, a New Yorker, and her fair-haired Connecticut trust-fund friend, Claire, both graduates from Brown, resolved to backpack around the world for a year and become heroines in their own epic stories. Starting in Hong Kong, the two naïve 21-year-olds, armed with Linda Goodman's Love Signs
, volumes of Nietzsche and a year's supply of tampons, ran into shoals fairly immediately, freaked out by fleabag hotels, vermin, importunate fellow travelers and the debilitating effects of illness, homesickness and the sole company of each other. As they roughed it through Communist China, Claire grew increasingly paranoid and delusional, eventually bolting on a bizarre bus trip that got her picked up by the police. Gilman's amusing journey focuses tightly on these first shaky seven weeks, offering the full wallop of disorienting, in-the-moment, transformative travel adventures.

On a whim, two recent Ivy League graduates decide to backpack around the world. China is their first stop, and, as it turns out, their last. What happens in between is capably, if a little rapidly, brought to listeners by the author, who has waited twenty-plus years to tell this exciting story. To her credit, she attempts to voice some of the international fellow travelers they meet, and when her friend develops mental illness, there's no mistaking the desperation in her voice as she tries to return to the U.S. Her tone also expresses appreciation for the scenery and the Chinese people, if not their officials. An author interview at the end is enlightening, although the interviewer sounds as if she's reading from a script J.B.G. (c) AudioFile 2009, Portland, Maine

March 1, 2009
Part travelog, part mystery, Gilman's latest memoirafter the best-selling "Hypocrite in a Pouffy White Dress"begins in 1986 with the author and a friend studying a placemat at IHOP titled "Pancakes of Many Nations." With more hubris than travel experience, these freshly minted Brown graduates decided to embark on a yearlong, around-the-world backpacking trip, beginning in China. Though they had wonderful experiences, a painful secret led to their undoing. Gilman's work will appeal to those who went in search of an "authentic travel experience" and got more than they bargained for. [See Prepub Alert, "LJ" 11/15/08.]E.B.

Copyright 2009 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 1, 2009
Gilmans standout travel memoir follows the author and her friend Claire as they embark on a backpacking trip through China after graduating from Brown University in the mid-1980s. Gilmans descriptions of their trials and tribulations crackle with wit as the girls, armed with an astrology guide and Instamatic cameras, trek through East Asia. At first, their challenges are limited to cockroach-ridden hostels, public toilets, and language barriers. Then they are aided by several fellow travelers they meet on a boat to Shanghai, as they attempt to navigate Chinas communist bureaucracy. Soon, however, friction erupts between Gilman and Claire, who is convinced they are being watched. Together, the two travel to places never before visited by Westerners, making fora trip neither will ever forget, and now, neither will Gilmans readers.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)