Freak Show Without a Tent
Subtitle: Swimming with Piranhas, Getting Stoned in Fiji, and Other Family Vacations
By: by Nevin Martell
Publisher: Possiblities Publishing
Published: 2014
Place of publication: United States]
Language: eng
Number of pages: 227
ISBN-13: 9780615889337
Subjects: Travel; Description and travel; Family vacations
Description: Fishing for piranhas in the Amazon, getting stoned at Fijian kava ceremonies, and witnessing the ancient ritual of land diving on Pentecost Island is the stuff of National Geographic cover stories - and Nevin Martell's childhood vacations. His family's globetrotting took them from the South Pacific to South America and many points nowhere in-between. Though their lifestyle choices were eccentric, the locations they visited exotic, and the people they met extraordinary, these escapades are firmly grounded in the trials, tribulations, and tribal rivalries that plague all families. Freak Show Without a Tent is a grandly hilarious memoir-misadventure that is equal parts National Lampoon's Vacation, Romancing the Stone and Crocodile Dundee. Woven seamlessly into the stories of exploring the far side of the far side, near death experiences and gastronomical catastrophes is the story of a young boy coming of age, the evolving relationship between a father and son, and a family discovering its own boundaries. With the honesty and innocence that can only come through the eyes of youth. Martell reveals the symbiosis of interdependence and independence that exist deep within both rainforests and families. To paraphrase a family motto: buy the ticket, take the ride, and hope you survive so that you can tell your therapist all about it.
Table of contents: title: Real Men Wear Bark Penis Sheaths [Vanuatu 1986, Age 12]; title: Pass the Kava on the Left-Hand Side [Fiji 1986, Age 12]; title: Catching the Travel Bug [Tonga & Western Somoa 1987, Age 12]; title: Do You Speak Een-gleesh? [The Azores 1988, Age 13]; title: Hello, I'm Robinson Crusoe [Trinidad & Tobago 1990, Age 15]; title: Piranhas Don't Drink Scotch [Venezuela & Colombia 1992, Age 17]; title: It Wasn't Like This the Last Time [Costa Rica 2012, Age 38]; title: Epilogue; title: Acknowledgments; title: About the Author.