Word: aitkenhead
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Fortunately, the story becomes fascinating about two-thirds of the way in, as Aitkenhead and her spouse find themselves in South Africa's heart of darkness. Hoping to discover a place where the club scene is relatively fresh and innocent, they stumble instead into a post-apartheid netherworld where the Ecstasy is plentiful but so is the agony. Drug gangsters prowl the dusty streets, gunshot blasts mix with the electronic dancebeats, and racism has merely developed more nuance. This is where the author's journalism chops really come into play, and the result is intensely compelling. One can envision...
...British newspaper columnist Decca Aitkenhead'sThe Promised Land (Fourth Estate; 217 pages). falls neatly into the second group. Touted as a non-fiction travel guide "in search of the perfect E," it follows Aitkenhead and her hubby Paul as they wander through America, Southeast Asia, South Africa and the Netherlands looking for a way to recapture their early transcendent experiences on Ecstasy. If the words "drugs" and "travel guide" trigger sudden flashbacks of Alex Garland's backpack bible The Beach, don't get excited?this adventure pales in comparison. Not only does Aitkenhead attempt the same jaded been-there, done...
...Early on, one of Aitkenhead's London mates seems aghast that she would even pursue this project, this "Ecstasy shopping spree, disguised as a book." More optimistically, another friend hopes the book will provide a kind of "cultural prism." The Promised Land doesn't quite live up to that billing, but it does deliver a light, breezy narrative with some astute snapshots of international dope meccas, more than a few chuckles, and an ending that leaves the reader coming down like the end of a good, night-long buzz. (Too bad the manuscript didn't have a better editor...
...best written and most gripping, Asian readers will likely fixate on the nearly 40 pages tracking the E seekers' journey to Bangkok, Ko Samui and Ko Phangnga. The Thai speed pills known as yaba, full moon raves and the Oriental Hotel are all referenced, but more insightful are Aitkenhead's observations about sex tourism and the psychology of farangs who consort with Thai hookers. Indeed, one of the most humorous exchanges occurs when Decca's husband and another Englishman argue over whether the ladies should be called "bar girls" or "prostitutes." "Men in Chaweng had the idea that the girls...
...Readers looking for enlightenment about E may be best served elsewhere. In fact, Aitkenhead takes great pains to avoid describing the physical effects of mdma, and much of the book is about searching for hug drugs rather than actually gulping them. As a travel journal, however, The Promised Land is a nice enough lark. It might not have the rich depth of Charles Nicholl's Borderlines, the hapless humor of William Sutcliffe's Are You Experienced, or the sublime poetry of Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg in their Yage Letters. Still, if you're totally spent on a beach this summer...