The Sex Lives of Cannibals: Adrift in the Equatorial Pacific »

J. MAARTEN TROOST’s essays have appeared in the Atlantic Monthly, the Washington Post, and the Prague Post. He spent two years in Kiribati in the Equatorial Pacific and upon his return was hired as a consultant by the World Bank. After several years in Fiji, he recently relocated to the U.S. and now lives with his wife and son in California.

Just in case you want to exercise your inner Gauguin, Troost here presents about a hundred reasons why you should stay in the 'burbs. He spent two years on a tropical isle, only to discover that it was a lot like hell, minus the toilets. While contending with putrifying heat, seas so polluted even those of limited divinity could walk on them, diseases never encountered in the relatively calm environs of an ER, and (shudder) no coffee or beer, Troost also found the only music to be had for miles was "La Macarena." To this case study of the absurd, Troost actually adds a bibliography. He does not include an index, which is a pity because readers may actually want to find out how many times Troost had to put up with "Half-Dead Fred" and outbreaks of hepatitis A, B, and C. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Publishers Weekly

At 26, Troost followed his wife to Kiribati, a tiny island nation in the South Pacific. Virtually ignored by the rest of humanity (its erstwhile colonial owners, the Brits, left in 1979), Kiribati is the kind of place where dolphins frolic in lagoons, days end with glorious sunsets and airplanes might have to circle overhead because pigs occupy the island's sole runway. Troost's wife was working for an international nonprofit; the author himself planned to hang out and maybe write a literary masterpiece. But Kiribati wasn't quite paradise. It was polluted, overpopulated and scorchingly sunny (Troost could almost feel his freckles mutating into something "interesting and tumorous"). The villages overflowed with scavengers and recently introduced, nonbiodegradable trash. And the Kiribati people seemed excessively hedonistic. Yet after two years, Troost and his wife felt so comfortable, they were reluctant to return home. Troost is a sharp, funny writer, richly evoking the strange, day-by-day wonder that became his life in the islands. One night, he's doing his best funky chicken with dancing Kiribati; the next morning, he's on the high seas contemplating a toilet extending off the boat's stern (when the ocean was rough, he learns, it was like using a bidet). Troost's chronicle of his sojourn in a forgotten world is a comic masterwork of travel writing and a revealing look at a culture clash. (June 8) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.