Getting Stoned With Savages – Book Review
February 11, 2007
J. Maarten Troost is a delightful writer. His books are topical, funny and engaging. Getting Stoned with Savages: A Trip Through the Islands of Fiji and Vanuatu is great summer/vacation read.
A DC bureaucrat type recently back from the adventure on an atoll in Kiribati, Maarten and his lovely wife have a hard time adjusting to the suburban lifestyle. So when an opportunity with the UN calls his wife back to the South Pacific, Maarten goes along and finds himself in Vanuatu.
He’s my kind of guy, he explores, he mingles with the locals, all while writing his first book and drinking copious amounts of kava, the hallucinogenic party drink of the South Pacific. He travels around the islands looking for people with personal knowledge of “eating the man” (a.k.a. cannibals), and tells a hilarious story of an encounter with a giant man-eating centipede.
Just when you’re roaring through the pages, his expecting wife and he go to the slightly more civilized Nation of Fiji in search of proper neo-natal care. In Fiji he still has some adventures, while sharing the wonderment of new parents in this strange land.
I hope he continues to write, I look forward to his next book.
Vinny 
1 Comment
1.
Janet Hartmann | March 11, 2007 at 11:32 am
Looks like we read from the same book pool. Did you read J. Maarten Troost’s earlier book: The Sex Lives of Cannibals? I tend to read lots of travel books. Here’s a list of some of my favorites, by no means all. Let me know if you’ve read any of ‘em!
1. The Back of Beyond: Travels to the Wild Places of the Earth by David Yeadon
2. Tales of a Female Nomad: Living at Large in the World by Rita Golden Gelmen
3. Searching For Paradise by Thurston Clarke
4. Holy Cow by Sarah MacDonald
5. No Touch Monkey by Ayun Halliday
6. Stranger in the Forest: On Foot Across Borneo by Eric Hansen
7. McCarthy’s Bar by Pete McCarthy
8. The Road To McCarthy by Pete McCarthy
Enjoy.
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