Headhunters on My Doorstep: A True Treasure Island Ghost Story
304
Headhunters on My Doorstep: A True Treasure Island Ghost Story
304eBook
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Overview
Readers and critics alike adore J. Maarten Troost for his signature wry and witty take on the adventure memoir. Headhunters on My Doorstep chronicles Troost’s return to the South Pacific after his struggle with alcoholism left him numb to life. Deciding to retrace the path once traveled by the author of Treasure Island, Troost follows Robert Louis Stevenson to the Marquesas, the Tuamotus, Tahiti, Kiribati, and Samoa, tumbling from one comic misadventure to another. Headhunters on My Doorstep is a funny yet poignant account of one man’s journey to find himself that will captivate travel writing aficionados, Robert Louis Stevenson fans, and anyone who has ever lost his way.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781101621691 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Penguin Publishing Group |
| Publication date: | 08/20/2013 |
| Sold by: | Penguin Group |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 304 |
| Sales rank: | 593,115 |
| File size: | 1 MB |
| Age Range: | 18 Years |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Chapter One
Everyone has problems. Spend a few moments catching up with friends and you’re likely to hear a litany of catastrophes.
“I lost my job at the prison,” one might say.
“I’m going to prison,” says another.
“I’m about to lose my home.”
“I blew mine up to collect the insurance.”
“My ferret died.”
“I ate mine.”
“. . .”
“Long story.”
Tales of woe had become inescapable. What were once simple quandaries now seemed to come equipped with trapdoors. One misstep and you’d tumble into the chute of doom, where demotions became terminations, homeowners became squatters, and Little Bandit was no longer safe. I was no exception. I too had problems. Multitudes of problems. If something could go wrong, it usually did. The only law that seemed to apply to me was Mr. Murphy’s. For a long while, decades even, the sun had shone upon me. Life had been an effortless glide. I’d traveled the world, married my soul mate, sired two strapping boys, and wrote books that— I’ve been confidently informed—landed on the bestseller list in Eugene, Oregon. I couldn’t explain why good things happened to me. They just did. But then, like a bad Chinese proverb, my good fortune evaporated like a spilled Slurpee in a Phoenix parking lot. Everything that could go wrong . . . was not a thought I dared to finish. It could always get worse, and usually it did.
What’d happened? I wondered. Good luck seeks no antecedent, but bad luck demands an inquest. Was it simply written in the cosmos? Did the yin of happiness necessitate the yang of misery? Could it simply be bad karma? No, I thought, as I reflected on the causes of my misfortune. Behind every event, every circumstance, lay a cold, hard trail of facts. I needed only to follow the breadcrumbs of past experience to bring me to the source of my tribulations. And there, sadly, I found something immense and unmovable:
Continents.
Bad things happened to me on large land masses. Terrible things.
This was a most unfortunate realization, of course. How I’d hoped to discover an unhappy childhood, an unjust prison sentence, or a soul-scarring bout of acne to explain the recent trajectory of my life. Who wants to blame their woes on something as inalterable as the North American tectonic plate? After all, continents are— at the very least— nice to look at. I too could admire majestic, snow-glazed mountains, the rivers that flowed with the tide of history, the buzz of the megacity. I am, for the record, appreciative of boreal forests and rain forests, deserts, and the vast expanse of the northern tundra. I like New York and Los Angeles, as well as Mumbai, Shanghai, and Dubai. I am fond of small towns. Also apple pie and yak, though not together. All this can be found on continents. But, alas, experience tells me that if I’m not surrounded by an ocean, my life crumbles like a stale cookie.
It’s true.
Take my most recent sojourn in North America. I’d protected my well-being by living on a peninsula. Surrounded by water on three sides, I navigated the perils of the modern world, and whenever events or situations threatened to leave my eyes agog and my head a- splitting, I retreated to a rented sailboat, where secure in a finite space surrounded by the infinite blue of the ocean, I navigated pitching waves and morning fog with an aplomb that failed me on dry land. On water I was free and sure; on land I felt like a lost fish. But then, chasing a job, I moved deeper into the continent, distant from familiar waters and sandy dunes, and there I fell.
Into the bottle to be precise. This wasn’t entirely unexpected. In retrospect, it was probably a foregone conclusion. I’d always had a temperamental shut-off valve. Open-minded to the mind-altering, I’d long ago learned to be wary of the seductive offerings of both the street and the pharmacy. I’d known that drugs could be a problem and that it was best to dispense with the experimentation early on. I pretty much maxed out on magic mushrooms. Instead, I’d settled into the steady companionship of pint glasses and decanters. Like everyone. It was normal, no? A few beers at the bar; wine with dinner. It was all good. In fact, hard liquor was a no-no in my world— until, eventually, it wasn’t, and there was that unknown moment when the proverbial invisible line was crossed, when everything started to tumble with a terrifying ferocity, and despite untold As-God-Is-My-Witness promises to get this under control, to show some restraint, I couldn’t. I couldn’t stop. Not until my wife, bless her, deposited me at rehab, where, sedated with Librium, I learned that lucky-ducky that I was, I had a fatal brain disease and should I ever pick up a drink again I might as well put five bullets in a six-shooter and shove it down my piehole.
So this was bad. And it happened on a continent. In my mind, the case was closed.
What People are Saying About This
A Conversation with J. Maarten Troost
What is it about the South Pacific that draws you back?
Have you ever wanted to escape, to fall off the map and disappear for a good long while? Me too. No place in the world elicits that kind of draw than an island in the South Seas. It’s where I go when I’m looking for a little dissonance in my life, a place to turn down the white noise of continental life and replace it with something more elemental. Like sharks. And long sea journeys. And sublime beauty. And all the other things that get your senses humming.
Also, having written two books about the region, I liked the idea of completing a South Pacific trilogy. It makes me feel like, I don’t know, a real man now.
You followed in the footsteps of Robert Louis Stevenson. Why him? Have you read his books?
Stevenson has long been peripheral to my life, just hovering in the margins. It seemed like no matter where I washed up, whether on the islands of Kiribati or the Central Coast of California, I was somehow following in his footsteps. But it wasn’t until I started reading him that I decided to explicitly follow Stevenson. I liked how he described the early books on the South Pacific. He called them sugar candy sham epics. This dude can write, I thought. And then, the more I read of him - the more I began to immerse myself in his world - the more I felt like I was communing with some kind of soul brother. He does what all the great writers do, which is to make you feel like you’re not alone.
What was it like going back to Kiribati?
Really trippy. At low tide, it seemed like nothing had changed since I lived there, which is remarkable really. Elsewhere in the world, the pace of change seems to have accelerated to warp speed. Kiribati, however, resides elsewhere in the space-time continuum, in a place where the movement of a turtle would be regarded as swift and reckless. At high tide, however, it is apparent that everything has changed. The islands are sinking. In a few years, Kiribati will be no more. And that is very sad.
Did it hurt getting a tattoo?
Not enough. I now look upon my body as a canvas, which is just so wrong when you’re over forty.
So you used to be a drunk. Discuss.
Yes, it turns out I’m an alcoholic. Yay for me. As far as I can tell, my story is pretty typical – a long period of fun with the drink, followed by a long period where the drinking became habitual and progressively less fun, followed by my world basically collapsing on account of my boozing, which was no fun at all. On the upside, as far as diseases go, this is a pretty good one to get. All you need to do is stop drinking and it’s amazing how much better your life gets. No chemo, no amputations of limbs, no painful injections. On the downside, quitting drinking can be devilishly hard for alcoholics. Not long after I finished my South Pacific travels I found myself at a literary festival in France, where I blithely accepted a glass of champagne and opened up that Pandora’s box all over again. Sigh. How I envy those with allergies to gluten and peanuts. But it is what it is and there’s nothing to do but to be honest about it, pick yourself up, and take it one day at a time.
Do you have any advice or resources for those who are looking to quit drinking?
There are as many paths to recovery as there are alcoholics. But generally, what works for most people is some combination of meetings with like-minded souls, exercise, yoga, meditation, and a healthy diet. But I like what Stephen King had to say about alcoholism. He called it the Liar’s Disease. Boozers and junkies are reflexive liars. And they’re really good at it. Being honest is pretty much the foundation of sobriety.
You talk about replacing drinking with running. Do you still run?
Yes, running remains important to me. I mix it up with Bikram Yoga, but I still get a kick out of going for a long run and not dying of a cardiac event.
There sure are some funny names for islands in the South Pacific. What is your favorite name and why?
In my home, Fakarava never fails to elicit snorts and giggles.
You discuss collecting native artwork. What is your most prized possession?
I have a large clay and bark mask from the island of Malekula in Vanuatu. Its gaze is one of devilish delight, like it knows the answer to a great cosmic riddle and it can’t help but laugh.