Headhunters on My Doorstep

September 30, 2013
Newly sober travel writer Troost retraces Robert Louis Stevenson's route through the South Pacific from the Marquesas to Samoa in this evocative, funny literary memoir. He recounts his voyage upon the Aranui III cargo ship rooming with a seasick "family of cheerful gnomes from Lyon," battling the urge for a drink and acquiring a traditional Marquesan tattoo on the anniversary of his sobriety. Troost provides insight into addiction and recovery that, in his case, turned him from alcoholic to longdistance runner, and from Buddhism to the Catholic Church. We learn the history of the islands and view the beautiful landscapes of lagoons, atolls, and beaches through Troost's vibrant descriptions. Troost muses on quotes from Stevenson's In the South Seas, such as his thoughts on cannibalism, "to eat a man's flesh after he is dead is far less hateful than to oppress him whilst he lives." He also discusses other literary works about the South Pacific including Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl's Back to Nature and Herman Melville's Typee. Troost is an excellent travel narrator, clever, bold, and full of captivating visual details. His personal story of recovery is also powerfully told and will surely resonate with many readers.

Starred review from July 1, 2013
Following a stint in rehab, travel writer Troost (Lost on Planet China: The Strange and True Story of One Man's Attempt to Understand the World's Most Mystifying Nation or How He Became Comfortable Eating Live Squid, 2008, etc.) chronicles his journey toward finding his new sober self while following in the tracks of Robert Louis Stevenson. For years, Troost lived the good life: "For a long while, decades even, the sun had shone on me. Life had been an effortless glide." Then, suddenly, it wasn't, and his wife dropped him at a rehab center along with an ultimatum to sober up or else. On the road to recovery, the author delved into the literature of the South Seas, particularly Stevenson's Treasure Island. His curiosity reawakened following his newfound sobriety, Troost set out on his own adventure for some of the most remote islands on Earth, including the Marquesas, the Tuamotus, Tahiti, the Gilberts and Samoa. Whether detailing the boorish behavior of other travelers, the serenity/fright experienced when snorkeling with sharks, rising sea levels or his own inadequacies, Troost's language rings true. The author candidly, humorously probes the nether regions of his addiction along with the temptations he encountered during his journey. "So now here I was," he writes, "nearly twelve months sober, alone for the first time in a faraway place, on a boatful of booze." Troost's sly wit permeates the narrative, propelling his saga out of the ranks of many recovery memoirs. The author weaves together entertaining and illuminating pop-culture touchstones, history, and cultural, culinary and literary references with personal experiences while rambling across the South Seas. A rambunctious, intimate trip well worth the armchair time.

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September 15, 2013

Troost (The Sex Lives of Cannibals) has done it again: he has created a masterly travelog that is simultaneously informative, funny, and introspective. Troost returns to the South Pacific, where he lived years earlier, before settling down on (as he simply refers to it) a continent. He attributes his alcoholism to non-island time; whether large land masses can be blamed for his thirst for vodka is debatable, but what is unquestionable is his ability to look at himself and his foibles and weave them into a good tale--in this case his attempt to follow in the footsteps of Robert Louis Stevenson. This book takes Troost to the Marquesas, the Tuamotus, Tahiti (all three now part of French Polynesia), the Gilberts (now Kiribati), and, finally, Samoa. VERDICT Troost displays a level of sophistication rarely found in travel writing. His humor is spot on, and one needs humor when reading about the loss of indigenous culture in the Marquesas, the urban sprawl of Tahiti, and the notion that Kiribati may soon be subsumed by the Pacific Ocean. Acquire this book by any means possible. [See Prepub Alert, 12/13/12.]--Lee Arnold, Historical Soc. of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from September 15, 2013
It might seem odd that Troost, the Dutch American travel writer, had never read Robert Louis Stevenson's In the South Seas, the chronicle of Stevenson's South Pacific voyage to the Marquesas, Tahiti, and Samoa. But, hey, to Troost's nimble, rather offbeat mind, RLS was boring. He was stuffy. He was probably English. Troost adds, So I was an idiot. This travel memoir charts the author's own South Pacific voyage, replicating (to a degree) Stevenson's. The trip was partly therapeuticTroost, a recovering alcoholic, has a big problem with continents ( Bad things happened to me on large land masses. Terrible things )and going somewhere small and isolated seemed just the thing to ease a troubled spirit. But there was also an educational component. Troost was trying to experience the voyage in two ways: as a modern-day adventure, but also as a way to explore an episode of Stevenson's life, to get to know this man and writer he'd neglected for far too long. Like Bill Bryson, Troost deftly combines humor, commentary, and education (an aside about the Marquesas episode of Survivor, sparked by the author's discovery that he's standing on a beach that featured in the show, leads smoothly into a look at old Marquesas and its odd mixture of wealth and poverty). Troost is a very funny guy, but he also has a lot of serious things to talk about. A splendid travel memoir.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)