Crazy River

Starred review from September 1, 2011

Fear and loathing in East Africa as travel writer Grant (God's Middle Finger: Into the Lawless Heart of the Sierra Madre, 2008, etc.) traverses the ravaged continent in search of a mysterious river and the source of the Nile.

The Malagarasi River in Tanzania had not been fully traveled by either Westerners or Africans. So, the tradition of 19th-century British explorers, first and foremost Richard Burton, who became his spectral travel companion, Grant set out to do so. But his adventures on the river—disease and disappointment, danger from crocs, hippos and bandits—became but part of his larger story about what Africa is and how to make sense of it. The author narrates his stops in Zanzibar, where he befriended a golf pro (on an island where there is no golf course), across Tanzania to Lake Tanganyika and on to Burundi and Rwanda, both ravaged by genocide and ethnic civil war. The journey nearly destroyed him: "Africa had ground away at my sanity and well-being." In Grant's Africa, verdant plains had become a "devastated moonscape" due to cattle overgrazing, mammoth slums overwhelmed cities overseen by corrupt leaders who got fat on the spoils of the Western "aid industry." He concludes that Africa "was a shambles and a disgrace." This may be a selective and overly harsh conclusion, but he tempers his indictment with an unerring eye for detail that imbues those he meets with dignity and humanity. The hustlers and whores of the dive bars he often frequented are seen, if blurrily, with compassion, and Grant marvels at the hope and enthusiasm of so many in the poorest nation in the world, Burundi. The joy of Congolese pop music and the craze for the country music of Kenny Rogers reassure him that resilience and resurgence may also be part of Africa. The source of the Nile, it turned out, was merely a "moss-fringed rabbit hole with a thin dribble of water leaking out of it."

Dyspeptic, disturbing and brilliantly realized, Grant's account of Africa is literally unforgettable.

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

September 15, 2011

Ah, the mighty Malagarasi River! Few people have heard of the second-longest river in Tanzania; when Grant (God's Middle Finger: Into the Lawless Heart of the Sierra Madre) learned about it, he became a bit obsessed with rafting the river from its headwaters to Lake Tanganyika. After two years of planning, Grant finally got his chance to follow in the footsteps of fellow British explorers, including his personal favorite Richard Francis Burton, and set out across East Africa. From Zanzibar to the Tanzanian mainland, Burundi, and Rwanda, Grant encountered a former African golf pro, prostitutes, expats, NGO workers, big-game hunters and guides, government officials (mostly corrupt), poachers, and refugees; interviewed the president of Rwanda; met many Africans struggling to stay alive; and tried to survive his East African adventure. VERDICT For those of us who like our travel stories realistic, humorous, with a dash of history, and filled with a cast of crazy characters, places, and situations, this book will not disappoint. Highly recommended for a wide range of readers.--Melissa Aho, Univ. of Minnesota Lib., Minneapolis

Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 1, 2011
Grant, who makes his living as a travel writer, had the idea to explore the Malagarasi, Tanzania's second longest river, and, in the process, to follow in the African footsteps of nineteenth-century explorer Richard Burton. Grant begins his odyssey in Zanzibar, off Tanzania's coast, where he hooks up with Milan, a half-Dutch, halfSouth African golf pro who is trying to eke out a living until somebody gets around to building a golf course. Grant gets an education in the people and customs of the country, while simultaneously getting an earful of Milan's quirky views on life, love, and making ends meet. And that pretty much sums up the book as a whole: a mixture of offbeat characters and travelogue, an entertaining and informative first-person account of a man who's very much out of his element but very keen to learn everything he can. The book has some serious moments, too; it's hard not to read his account of visiting the Genocide Memorial in Kigali, Rwanda, without being moved. A highly educational and entertaining travel memoir.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)