Article 2 - REVIEW OF "The Sex Lives of Cannibals" June 2007 edition of First Church of The Streets

    Have you ever dreamed of moving to a deserted tropical island, living the life of Robinson Crusoe, or as a beachcomber? To be away from all the demands of civilized society and to just spend days at the shore, now that would be paradise to many people. It was for J. Maarten Troost as well, until he met up with the island of Tarawa, the main island of the Equatorial Pacific nation of Kiribati. He thought that disappearing from society onto a tropical island would be romantic. Thoughts and reality have a way of clashing with one another, however.

    In "The Sex Life of Cannibals", Troost relates how he was disabused of the notion of a tropical island paradise. With a wry sense of bemusement, he shows how a romantic notion of life on a beach with coconuts turns into a nutty comedy of bacteria, polluted seas, and erratic natives. At twenty-six, Troost was a recent graduate student, and his impending degree forced him to realize that adult life awaited him. With this in mind, he chose to run to the ends of the earth with his girlfriend, who also didn't exactly want to settle down into the white collared nine to five world. With his girlfriend working as a relief worker on Kiribati, Troost begins his career as stay-at-home mate by going for a swim in the luscious waters. Instead, he finds out how sanitation works on this so-called tropical paradise, revising his earlier fantasies. It only goes down from there, and for the next two years, Troost experiences more hilarity than could be imagined on Gilligan's Island.

    Troost's biggest asset in writing this book is the fact that he doesn't take himself too seriously. He maintains a sense of bemusement at how he let himself somehow get stuck in the middle of nowhere, and how being stuck in the middle of nowhere meant he really was stuck. Where people could be frustrated to the point where they hate the natives and wind up with a sense of superiority of the modern world, Troost, while remaining Western in his attitudes, adjusts eventually with equanimity. He keeps in mind that he got what he paid for by looking for adventure and a sense of being in the middle of nowhere.

    The only criticism in my mind comes in the early part of the book. Troost seems so caught up in the hilarity of his predicament that sometimes the wisecracks come off as one big run-on sentence. But this could be seen simply as an expression of his being overwhelmed, and of amazement at his island paradise fantasy shattering like fallen coconuts on concrete. By the middle of the book, he has found his rhythm and groove. He masters the art of conveying his experience with a more subtle humor that shades what it really is like to live on a deserted island, where the comedy comes out of nowhere and hence seems all the more hilarious. He intersperses his narrative with cultural observations and the history of the island with intelligent clarity, and provides social commentary on the nature of the First World's so-called aid programs with the insight that only one who has visited a developing nation can provide. And he also shares with the audience his novel-in-progress, a unique comment in itself.

    "The Sex Lives of Cannibals" is a great read beach read for the summer, one that is more literate and informative than the dime novels that are offered for hot-weather fare. It is intelligent yet fun, and probably will make you see your day at the sea in a whole different light. For a light book that doesn't make your brain feel like it ate too much cotton candy, "The Sex Live of Cannibals" is the book for you.