Kadushin, contributor to National Geographic
and other travel magazines, has compiled a collection of tales of journeys to the soul as much as place. Evoking Paul Theroux, Mary McCarthy and Jan Morris, this anthology's best pieces show the depth of personal revelation that attends traveling into the true heartland, be it in Ohio or in Italy. Several are breathtakingly good: Philip Gambone's poignant "Do You Join in Singing the Same Bigness?" details his stays in China and a life-altering trip to Vietnam; Edmund White's beautifully muted "Death in the Desert" elucidates the impact of AIDS with haunting clarity during a stay in the Middle East; Matthew Link's exquisite "No Man's Land" depicts his trip to the literal ends of the earth—Antarctica—in terms befitting Amundsen or Darwin. Other pieces are simply fine: Boyer Rickel's sweetly sexy paean to Italy, "Reading the Body"; Tim Miller's quixotic "1001 Beds"; and J.S. Marcus's attention-grabbing "Everywhere." Not all of the collection has overtly queer themes, and few pieces are truly sexual; there are no tours of gay Amsterdam, the Berlin homostrasses
or the bath houses of the tropics. Rather, Kadushin has gathered highly disparate pieces, some fiction, most not, which limn the character of traveling, the subtleties and nuance that attend gay men together (or alone, but seeking companionship) in foreign climes and the feel of places, rather than mere descriptions of them. Sharp, gritty and immensely compelling, this compendium breathes with the essence of travel: learning about a place teaches about one's self. (Feb.)
