Everything Is Going to Be Great: An Underfunded and Overexposed European Grand Tour
When actor and writer Shukert realizes her passport was never stamped on her entry into Europe, as an ensemble-cast member in a New York–based play on tour, she decides to take advantage and string her vacation along indefinitely. After the show’s stints in Vienna and Zurich, Shukert stays (squats might be more appropriate) with two friends in Amsterdam. Indeed underfunded and overexposed, Shukert’s life as an expat in the so-called Venice of the North provides lots of hilarious fodder for the memoir it will become. Shukert possesses a certain talent to find the funny in almost any situation, and her shockingly personal and irreverent writing makes for many laughs, but not at the cost of losing our sympathy in the face of her deepest disappointments. She breaks up the narrative frequently with sidebar tips for the European traveler (Emergency Room and When Someone Mistakes You for a Prostitute, for example). While those searching for a pithy, informative travelogue might roll their eyes, others will appreciate this entertaining and very current meditation on what it means to be a young American artist abroad. --Annie Bostrom