Writer, pioneering English teacher abroad and former magazine editor Chuck Thompson promises to lift the lid on the travel writing industry in his new book, tantalizingly titled Smile When You’re Lying: Confessions of a Rogue Travel Writer.
Things start out with a suitably appalling anecdote set in a greasy Thai bar, involving an ex-pat Australian – who nevertheless delivers the best line in the book – a pervy German, an, um, efficient, business-oriented bar “girl”, and our beloved writer, an insider who uses this dismal scene to illustrate his greatest regret in his erstwhile travel writing career – that his nervous editors (anxious to please advertisers) have tragically forced him to leave stories like this on “the editing room floor”.
Mixed metaphors aside, things threaten to slide down quickly from there, as another edgy anecdote is trotted out about an older (mature?) Thai prostitute who offers the writer a graphic, unwanted come-on. The story comes complete with horrified descriptions of over-the-hill nudity that grosses the writer out but is obviously intended to establish two things: One, that the writer has the right credentials for an expose on the travel-writing industry, and two, that he’s a sexy guy and understandably, some folks can’t keep their hands to themselves.
Those two elements are crucial if Thompson is to successfully carry out his task. And he sometimes does. But the book, quite readable and funny despite his lad-mag tone – I must insist on a future rule: unless they’re yours, the word “tits”, written without irony, may only be used five times, max, in the same book, sorry fellas – doesn’t always live up to his promise.
The shocking stuff isn’t all that shocking. For instance, did you realize the publishing industry is obsessed with ad revenues and pleasing advertisers! That the financial bottom line of a magazine comes before editorial bravery? Hold the back page, Scoop.
Here’s another shocker: the best places to travel, those coveted, dreamed-about, touristic frontiers written about so lovingly and descriptively by travel writers of all stripes, are quickly trammeled under the weight of the teeming, Lonely Planet guide-book carrying hordes. Word gets out and things change. Magical places, from exquisite white sand beaches with swaying palm trees to eccentric former East Bloc countries, get ruined once the tourists discover them. They become like everywhere else. Those places you left behind seeking something you’ve never seen before.
He has a point. It’s one of the cruel aspects of travel writing. He uses the effect of the cruise ship industry on his native Juneau as a compelling example. Not so long after the actual Love Boat’s (snickeringly called the “Fuck Boat”, ha ha) historic TV visit, the rough-n’-ready watering holes that lined Juneau’s downtown began to disappear and be replaced by tourist-friendly souvenir shops, floating cities, and their attendant sewage.
In short, let people know about it, and risk destroying what makes a place unique. That’s why I’ve always suspected the best places are never, or rarely, written about, becoming secret and inaccessible to all but the knowing, worthy few.
But leave these places alone, and you’re not really doing an honest job, and, worse, risk writing meaningless pap that’s indistinguishable from advertising – something he rails against persuasively. He even attempts to distance himself from travel writing and travel writers, caustically and justifiably slamming most cliche-ridden travel copy one finds everywhere these days as lazy, irresponsible writing commissioned by meek, herd-happy editors who haven’t left their desks in ages. Using words like tasty or stew to describe anything other than food is, agreed, unacceptable, and describing readers as “Renaissance funhogs”, whatever those are, should understandably be outlawed forever.
Thompson’s chapters are fairly short, suggesting he’s comfortable with magazine-length dissections of the topics he raises, but tends to give Smile When You’re Lying an episodic, disjointed quality.
Despite the title’s promise, the book functions much more as a memoir. We hear much about Thompson’s lonely days in rural Japan, teaching English to bored students with bad pronunciation. Stories about cocaine and booze-fueled, adolescent adventures in Thompson’s native Juneau paint an understandably nostalgic, exotic picture of life in rugged South East. At times, his cocky, hip tone is a bit much, and there’s a lot of needless literary flourishes that come across as a tad sexist. That’s not too surprising, though; among other things, he is a former features editor of that rancid (full disclosure: I’m judging the magazine by its covers) boys rag, Maxim.
His advice is often dismissive. Listing off a stack of places and things he figures are overrated, he disses all Chinatowns! Including Vancouver’s, which is either a revelation or an unfair pot-shot hurled by a former hick who desperately compensates by affecting a predictable, cooler-than-thou attitude, I haven’t decided which.
And I skipped a chunk of copy devoted to memorializing the plucky glories of the Miracle-On-Ice hockey heroes who stuck it to the pro-team Soviets during the 1980 Olympics in Lake Placid.
His credentials as a northerner helped win me over, though. I was surprised and reassured by the oddly poignant story he closes the book with, and the last few lines were a real gift, offering redemption for the dig at Chinatowns. I won’t spoil it, except to say, if you decide to pick this book up, please don’t miss the last chapter, which takes place somewhere along Highway 16, and strikes me as a story that could ONLY happen along Highway 16. Or possibly deep up Highway 37, past Cranberry Junction.
