Synopses & Reviews
At the age of twenty-six, Maarten Troost—who had been pushing the snooze button on the alarm clock of life by racking up useless graduate degrees and muddling through a series of temp jobs—decided to pack up his flip-flops and move to Tarawa, a remote South Pacific island in the Republic of Kiribati. He was restless and lacked direction, and the idea of dropping everything and moving to the ends of the earth was irresistibly romantic. He should have known better.
The Sex Lives of Cannibals tells the hilarious story of what happens when Troost discovers that Tarawa is not the island paradise he dreamed of. Falling into one amusing misadventure after another, Troost struggles through relentless, stifling heat, a variety of deadly bacteria, polluted seas, toxic fish—all in a country where the only music to be heard for miles around is “La Macarena.” He and his stalwart girlfriend Sylvia spend the next two years battling incompetent government officials, alarmingly large critters, erratic electricity, and a paucity of food options (including the Great Beer Crisis); and contending with a bizarre cast of local characters, including “Half-Dead Fred” and the self-proclaimed Poet Laureate of Tarawa (a British drunkard whos never written a poem in his life).
With The Sex Lives of Cannibals, Maarten Troost has delivered one of the most original, rip-roaringly funny travelogues in years—one that will leave you thankful for staples of American civilization such as coffee, regular showers, and tabloid news, and that will provide the ultimate vicarious adventure.
Review
"Okay, so Tarawa is less paradise than purgatory, but hang in there Troost will lead you to paradise, too. Lives up to the billing as 'a travel, adventure, humor, memoir kind of book' and a really good one, at that." Kirkus Reviews
Synopsis
After racking up useless graduate degrees and muddling through a series of temp jobs, author Troost decided the idea of dropping everything and moving to the ends of the Earth was irresistibly romantic. He should have known better. This is his hilarious story.
Synopsis
The true story of how a quarter-life crisis led to adventure, freedom, and love on a tiny island in the Pacific.
From the author of a lot of emails and several facebook posts comes A Beginners Guide to Paradise, a laugh-out-loud, true story that will answer your most pressing escape-from-it-all questions, including:
1. How much, per pound, should you expect to pay a priest to fly you to the outer islands of Yap?
2. Classic slumber party stumper: If you could have just one movie on a remote Pacific island, what would it definitely not be?
3. How do you blend fruity drinks without a blender?
4. Is a free, one-hour class from Home Depot on Flowerbox Construction” sufficient training to build a house?
From Robinson Crusoe to Survivor, Gilligans Island to The Beach, people have fantasized about living on a remote tropical island. But when facing a quarter-life crisis, plucky desk slave Alex Sheshunoff actually did it.
While out in Paradise, he learned a lot. About how to make big choices and big changes. About the less-than-idyllic parts of paradise. About tying a loincloth without exposing the tender bits. Now, Alex shares his incredible story and pretty-hard-won wisdom in a book that will surprise you, make you laugh, take you to such unforgettable islands as Yap and Pig, and perhaps inspire your own move to an island with only two letters in its name.
Answers: 1) $1.14 2) Gas Attack Training Made Simple 3) Crimp a fork in half and insert middle into power drill 4) No.
About the Author
Alex Sheshunoff is a writer-like person whose work has appeared in
National Geographic Adventure, Slate.com,
Marketplace on National Public Radio, and other very prestigious media outlets. Before deciding to call himself a writer, Alex snuck through Yale and started and ran an Internet company in New York called E-The People - a nonpartisan precursor to Moveon.org, which was featured in the
New York Times,
Forbes,
CNN, and elsewhere.
Five years after starting the company, burnt out, and facing a sort of quarter-life crisis, Alex gathered the hundred books he was most embarrassed not to have read in college and moved to a small island in the Pacific. There, he read his books, met a woman hed later marry, and built a house on a remote island with a dozen friends. He later wrote a book about the experiencethis oneand got to rewrite that book while getting a masters degree in creative nonfiction writing from the University of Iowa.
Today, Alex and his wife, Sarah, live in California with their two sons, Ian and Andrew.