New Travel Book: ‘A Rotten Person Travels the Caribbean’

Travel Blog  •  Elyse Franko  •  07.08.08 | 5:15 PM ET

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Full title: “A Rotten Person Travels the Caribbean: A Grump in Paradise Discovers that Anyplace it’s Legal to Carry a Machete is Comedy Just Waiting to Happen”

Author: Gary Buslik

Released: June 2008

Travel genre: Bad-natured travel, island travel

Territory covered: The Caribbean

Promo copy: “‘A Rotten Person Travels the Caribbean’ ... is an irreverent, no-holds-barred collection of travel essays about one man’s desperate struggle not to fit in—and the result is total hilarity. Each chapter of this rollicking travelog recounts another island-hopping, culture-clashing crisis that puts the homesick author against Idi Amin, flesh-eating monkeys, customs agents, and, occasionally, his longtime travel companion, his wife.”

Critical verdict: “Even when it’s somewhat offensive, it’s still pretty funny. The reader may be put off by racial and national stereotypes, by Spanish rendered as unintelligible baby-talk, by the general tone of condescension toward locals and Europeans, or by turning cultural differences into comedy. ... Or perhaps none of these things will bother the reader in the least, because Americans really do tend to behave badly overseas (never mind here at home) and it’s pretty amusing to read about someone who is even more arrogant, insensitive, and grumpy than they are.” (Clifford Garstang, Blogcritic) “P.J. O’Rourke and Paul Theroux in a blender.” (Luis Alberto Urrea, back cover blurb)

Find it: Amazon, Powell’s, publisher

Tags: Islands, Travel Books, Caribbean, Literary Travel

Elyse Franko is a Long Island native, a graduate of the American University School of Communication in Washington, D.C., and a former World Hum intern. During her time at university, she wrote and edited for several campus publications and fostered her love for traveling by spending time abroad in Istanbul, Turkey, and Berlin, Germany. She currently works as a teaching assistant in Vienna, Austria.


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