"A soulful and searching book. Vibrant and elegant...McCarthy's prose shines with intelligence and intimacy. One feels pulled along...the book gaining momentum and meaning page by page" (Cheryl Strayed, The New York Times Book Review).
With absorbing honesty and an irrepressible taste for adventure, award-winning travel writer and actor Andrew McCarthy takes us on a deeply personal journey played out amid some of the world's most evocative locales. Unable to commit to his fiancee of nearly four years-and with no clear understanding of what's holding him back-McCarthy finds himself at a crossroads, plagued by doubts that have clung to him for a lifetime. Though he ventures from the treacherous slopes of Mt. Kilimanjaro to an Amazonian riverboat and the dense Costa Rican rain forests, McCarthy's real journey is one of the spirit. Disarmingly likable, McCarthy isn't afraid to bare his soul on the page, and what emerges is an intimate memoir of self-discovery and an unforgettable love song to the woman who would be his wife.
Andrew McCarthy is an actor I remember from my teenage years, a man who features on a few of my favourite movies. So when I saw that he had a travel book that was about him dealing with his issues around marriage I was intrigued, when I read it I was charmed.
I do empathise with his feeling of being twitchy in crowds and lonely within groups, I know that feeling all too well myself. In this he explores being in foreign countries, actually working for the National Geographic Traveler, and recounting some of his adventures, alongside his relationship with his now-wife and then-fiancee, and with his own issues and through these travels he comes to terms with himself and with his relationships with the people closest to him.
I enjoyed the read, loved the bits about dealing with his issues and with the wedding and D's dealings with him, which came across as very Irish without being twee.
I would recommend it. Not quite five star but damn close
Reading updates
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26 February, 2013:
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26 February, 2013:
Reviewed