The Sex Lives of Cannibals
Adrift in the Equatorial Pacific
2003 • 272 pages
Ratings12
Average rating3.4
15
Adrift in the Equatorial Pacific
Ratings12
Average rating3.4
The laugh-out-loud true story of a harrowing and hilarious two-year odyssey in the distant South Pacific island nation of Kiribati--possibly The Worst Place on Earth.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 who's 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.
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Oh boy, I did not like this book. First, the title - which almost put me off from reading the book entirely - and was weirdly never addressed in the book itself, but instead seemed like a catchy title cooked up by a publisher who thought it would sell. Which really reflects how weirdly tone-deaf this book can be. Although Troost provides a portrait of a place very few people have written about, and at times can be insightful about the challenges that Pacific nations like Kiribati face, his description of the nation and its residents is ultimately one-dimensional, and his tales of personal suffering as the husband of a foreign aid-worker getting by in this place seemed... insensitive.
Easy reading, though nothing particularly ground-breaking.
