Review of the Sex Lives of Cannibals: Adrift in the Equatorial Pacific by J. Maarten Troost

I’ve had my fair share of travel adventures.  In Argentina, I survived 3 robbery attempts and a pervy bus passenger who thought it was okay to rub his genitals on me.  In Venezuela, I stayed in a roach infested hotel and paid 10 times more than a local for bus fare.  In Bolivia I survived tropical fire ants and I flicked llama poop at my cousin.  I’ve seen the favelas in São Paulo and a Paraguayan no-man’s-land border crossing where everything is for sale.  In Patagonia, I walked so much I had quarter sized blisters on my feet.  In China, I watched my husband eat pigeon on a stick and fried scorpions.   

My sister has lived on 4 continents and she’s probably got just as many stories.  Some will make you laugh, some will make you shudder and some will just make you thankful that you don’t have to live there.  I got the same feeling reading J. Maarten Troost’s The Sex Lives of Cannibals: Adrift in the Equatorial Pacific, a humorous travel memoir of Troost’s two years living on the atoll island of Tarawa in the Republic of Kiribati.  The story begins with Troost’s ramblings about a string of dead end jobs and gen-x confusion about what to do with his life.  Then his girlfriend gets a job offer in Kiribati.  They are both entranced with the idea of living on a South Pacific island—the palm trees, ocean breezes, friendly people, relaxed atmosphere.  They were wrong about almost everything. 

If you’ve never heard of Kiribati (pronounced “kir-ee-bas”) you’re probably not alone.  It’s a tiny nation, composed of 33 islands of which only 21 are inhabited with its less than 80,000 citizens.  This is how Troost describes it: 

To picture Kiribati, imagine that the continental US were to conveniently disappear leaving only Baltimore and a vast swath of very blue ocean in its place.  Now chop up Baltimore into 33 pieces, place a neighborhood where Maine used to be, another where California once was, and so on until you have 33 pieces of Baltimore dispersed in such a way that 32/33 of Baltimorians will never attend another Orioles game again.  Now take away electricity, running water, toilets, television, restaurants, buildings and airplanes… (p16)

Troost narrates incidents with peeping Tom neighbors, stifling equatorial heat, empty rain water tanks, fish, fish and more fish to eat.  And if you don’t want to eat fish your option is canned corn beef that is several years past its expiration date. 

 

What I appreciated most was Troost’s explanations of how completely foreign this culture is to anything a westerner can imagine.  These islanders’ sense of time, property, order, cleanliness, safety, health,  food and just about everything else is 180 degrees from what we are used to.  I found myself wondering over and over again, why anyone would choose to stay in such a desolate place.  And yet, the way Troost tells the story, you often find yourself laughing as much as you’re horrified at some of the things that take place. 

    

Ratings (For an explanation of my rating factors, please visit the Rating System Key page.)

Crack Factor – 7.5.  This is an entertaining book, not great literature, but enjoyable enough to keep you coming back to the page.  

Enrichment Factor – 9.5. Have you ever heard of Kiribati before? Yeah, me neither...Did you think all South Pacific island nations were little slices of paradise?  Can you imagine a place where nothing grows, but people still live?  Troost also does a great job of going over Kiribati’s history, economy, society, government and examines the social issues and challenges these people face.  It was certainly eye opening.  I had no idea such a place could exist.    

PeopleFactor – 8. Troost, his girlfriend and neighbors make entertaining characters. 

Story Telling Factor – 7.5 There’s not a whole lot of plot here.  It’s mostly a collection of vignettes; they are well woven and in the end, you get a sense of what he and his girlfriend gained and lost (both positive and negative) by living in this place. 

Writing Skills Factor – 8.5 Troost does a pretty good job with the humorous travelogue. I am always impressed with someone who can make a career out of seemingly nothing. For him to narrate his life as a house-husband in the middle of nowhere and turn it into a book is pretty cool.  Makes me wonder if I’ve got a novel somewhere in my own life…

Total rating - 8.2

Review of The Grace of Silence: A Memoir, by Michele Norris

I’ve been an NPR listener for almost 20 years.  It’s almost always what I’ve got playing in the car, and it’s often my background sound when I’m at home.  I’ve probably heard Michele Norris on the radio a thousand times or more.  Like most television and radio journalists, you hear them all the time, recognize their voices as much as those of your friends and family and yet you almost never know anything personal about them.  That’s not usually part of journalism, whose goal is to remain as objective as possible.  Journalists don’t usually put themselves in piece; they just try to tell the story for what it is. 

I was intrigued with this book club pick because it takes one of my most familiar voices and it put a whole context of life behind it.  As Norris explains, the idea for this memoir came to her as she was trying to capture the racial dialogue in the aftermath of Barack Obama’s inauguration.  As she was encouraging this conversation to come to the surface and she listened to the stories of many American families, she uncovered her own family’s stories that had been deliberately kept from her. 

Hence the title---The Grace of Silence---Her parents’ silence was their grace.  By not giving new voice to these stories, they believed they gave Michele and her sisters an advantage.  They withheld that which could have embittered or prejudiced their children; they chose not to burden them with that information so that their children could rise above it.  The question Michele asks all these years later is was that silence necessary?  Should it always have been part of the story?  Could they all have achieved what they achieved with this knowledge?  Would they have the same attitudes?

True to her journalist form, once Michele learns her family’s unspoken stories, she uncovers every detail possible.  The first part is about her maternal grandmother’s story, who had been a traveling aunt Jemima selling pancake mix throughout the Midwest.  The second is her father’s story of being shot by a white police officer in Birmingham, Alabama.  As she researches these stories, she gives the reader the historical and racial context, and a true understanding of what life was like in those times and places for people of color.

 

At times this story is difficult to read.  Racial issues are sensitive and the treatment of minorities throughout history is shameful.  More than once I felt angry and sad, at times even horrified and ashamed that one human being would treat another with so little respect.  And yet, Norris’s gift is that despite the heavy content of the book, in just as many places, I smiled, because she shared so many personal family stories that are familiar—stories of parents and children, siblings and neighbors and people.

I really enjoyed this book; it’s a quick read, well written, thought provoking and even entertaining.  Norris’ style is down to earth and frank.  The book comes off as a journey:  She uncovers these stories from her family, frames them in historical context and then pieces them back into the memories she has of her parents and grandparents.  The characters she meets along the way play crucial roles in the racial dialogue and she paints vivid pictures of them, too. 

Crack Factor – 9.5.  This book goes fast.

Tears Shed Factor 9.0.  You can’t read this book and not feel.  It evokes many emotions throughout.

Distraction Factor/Enrichment Factor 9.0.  Even if you’ve studied racial issues and civil rights, this story is fresh.  It’s rich with new material, new ideas, new perspective and it will keep the wheels turning in your mind for a long time.

Writing Skills Factor 9.875.  I hope I’m not gushing too much.  I’m just really awed by Michele Norris.  I’ve respected her as a journalist for so many years and top of all of that, she can turn out a book as impressive as this.  It’s amazing and humbling.  I’m a forever fan now.

 

Story Telling Factor.  9.5.  98% of this book is fabulous.  It moves quickly and is informative and well constructed.  I do have to say at one point I got bogged down with some of the historical details and I had to skim through it.  It was probably just me at the time---a quick glance back through the book and I couldn’t even find what I’d missed, so it wasn’t like it was 20 pages, probably only 3 or 4.  I can’t mark her down for that, when it was probably just me being a lazy reader…

Total Rating:  9.375

Here's an NPR interview/article about the book.