Travel
Bound
by Jim Gladstone
 AIRPLANE
READ OF THE MONTH
While its title certainly makes Stacey D’Erasmo’s
new novel a fine choice for in-flight reading, The
Sky Below (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. $24. www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com)
is also one of the richest new works of fiction this year.
This story of a not-entirely-likable gay artist who grows
up breaking into his neighbors’ homes and hustling
in bus station men’s rooms, is strangely infused
with magic realism and collage-like juxtapositions that
reflect both the main character’s own artwork and
the work of Joseph Cornell, whose diorama-like sculptures
clearly influence both D’Erasmo (a lesbian, and former
literary editor of the Village Voice) and her protagonist.
Quirky, poetic, and leaving much open to the reader’s
interpretation, this is at once an immersive and challenging
reading experience. Highly recommended.
Sometimes, the best way to deal with adversity in one’s
own life is to reach out to others in need. Many members
of the LGBT community who have lost jobs in the current
economic crisis are pausing to reconsider their values,
goals, and aspirations. If you’re able to think
about making a major, dramatic change in your lifestyle,
take a look at Dillon Banerjee’s inspiring but
realistic The Insider’s Guide to the Peace Corps
(Ten Speed Press. $14.95. www.tenspeedpress.com).
If you thought the corps was only for just-out-of-college
twenty-somethings, think again: more than 5% of new
volunteers are over 50, with plenty of folks filling
in those middle two decades. Gays and lesbians are welcome
and there are support networks within the corps, although
the only way for a couple—straight or gay—to
automatically be stationed together is to be married
(see the LGBT alumni website at www.lgbrpcv.org/articles.htm).
Acceptance into the corps is highly competitive, with
over 10,000 applicants a year. Diplomat and former corps
member Banerjee explains what skill sets and personality
types are sought after, along with providing lots of
detail on what life is like once you’re sent on
assignment in a third world country. Clearly, the Peace
Corps is not for everyone, but just reading about its
mission, and about the people it serves, will make you
grateful for your life in the United States, no matter
how challenging it may feel these days.
 Writer
Dan Koeppel unpeels a surprisingly intriguing subject
in Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed The
World (Plume. $16. www.penguin.com).
You’ll never be able to slice a Chiquita into your
morning cereal in quite the same way after reading this
absorbing blend of history and science. Koeppel details
the shocking collusion between the US government and
American agribusiness in dominating the national politics
and economies of Honduras, Guatemala, and other Latin
American countries in order to make billions from bananas.
Running parallel to this narrative is the horticultural
story of bananas and how virtually every supermarket
banana we eat today is genetically identical, and new
viruses are emerging that could swiftly wipe out the
entire species. Koeppel takes his reader from plantations
to seed banks to genetic research facilities in this
fascinating, globetrotting investigation.
 Equal
pay for equal work was hardly par for the course back
in the 1880s when circuses and carnivals began to feature
performers with head-to-toe tattoos. Tattooed ladies
were much bigger breadwinners than their male counterparts,
in part because of their relative rarity, but also because
they offered an excuse for spectators to examine bodily
regions that were usually hidden away. Nora Hildebrandt,
whose full-body canvas was inked by her German immigrant
father, toured nationally with Ringling Brothers; Emma
DeBurgh’s back featured a recreation of DaVinci’s
The Last Supper; and former nanny Betty Broadbent hit
the road in the summers but ran her own San Francisco
tattoo parlor during the rest of the year. These lovely
ladies are just of few of the characters you’ll
meet and see in Carol Clerk’s lavishly illustrated
and thoroughly researched Vintage Tattoos: The Book
of Old School Skin Art (Universe. $29.95. www.rizzoliusa.com).
Somehow quaint and sexy at once, this opus of the epidermis
will stimulate smiles, winces, and perhaps more.
 Known
as Ceylon until 1972, Sri Lanka (which means The Resplendent
Land in native Sinhalese) was a colony of Portugal,
the Netherlands, and Great Britain before becoming its
own republic. The natural beauty of this island nation
is celebrated in David Robson and Dominic Sansone’s
gorgeous new illustrated book, Bawa: The Sri Lankan
Gardens (Thames & Hudson. $45. www.thamesandhudsonusa.com).
Geoffrey Bawa was born in Ceylon in 1919, moved to England
to attend Cambridge and earn a law degree, and at the
relatively late age of 38, took up architecture and
garden design. From the parliament of Sri Lanka to major
hotels across the island, Bawa’s buildings are
present throughout his homeland, but it is his remarkable
garden estate, Lunuganga, that bears his most personal
stamp, elegantly interweaving classical Western layouts
with colonial-style outbuildings and the exotic plantlife
and ancient sculptural forms of the native cultures.
Amidst the dozens of vibrating green tones that leave
no doubt the visitor is in a jungle environment, are
elegant little piazzas and sculpture presentations with
a Mediterranean feel, providing a familiar sense of
comfort and luxury amidst the delightfully strange.
The book also focuses on a second garden, called Brief,
designed by Geoffrey’s younger brother, Bevis.
While the book’s biographical text about the brothers’
lives is disappointingly evasive on certain matters:
there is a notable lack of wives or children in their
life stories, along with accounts of a male houseguest
who stayed for five years and was depicted by Bevis
in a large nude mural portrait. Photographer Sansoni’s
shadow-dappled images are made all the more alluring
by a sense that there are many more secrets and stories
hidden in these landscapes.
[Published:
June, 2009]
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