TRAVEL & GEOGRAPHY

The Longest Way Home

by Andrew McCarthy
. September 2012. 288p. 978-1-45166-748-6. 26.
COPY ISBN
Though most recognizable as a member of the group of actors known in the 1980s as the Brat Pack, actor and travel journalist McCarthy (editor-at-large, National Geographic Traveler) shows off his writing chops in this memoir of his gradual resolution of the major conflicts in his life: to wander or to settle, to commit or to be free, to be lonely or to be sociable. As he struggles to commit to his fiancée of four years, he travels alone to exotic and remote locales (Mt. Kilimanjaro, Patagonia, lesser-known parts of Costa Rica and the Amazon) and, with his wife-to-be, to cities that epitomize civilization (New York, Vienna, and Dublin). His work as a travel writer gives him the opportunity to simultaneously wander the globe and return to his resolve to marry the woman he loves.
VERDICT Combining the best aspects of Paul Theroux’s misanthropy in books like Old Patagonian Express and Elizabeth Gilbert’s emotions in Eat, Pray, Love, this book is hard to put down. Bound to be popular, this compelling and honest chronicle will not disappoint readers.
Reviewed by Sue White , Sep 15, 2012
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