Smile When You're Lying

Smile When You're Lying: Chuck Thompson spent years in the trenches churning out those fluffy, content-free pieces that seem to recycle through glossy travel mags, including the ones in the seat pocket in front of you next to the air sickness bag. I can't imagine anyone thinking those represent the actual process and experiences of travel any more than Hogan's Heroes represents Nazi prison camp life. Real travel stories, while occasionally interesting, would piss off advertisers and so magazines and guidebooks actively omit them. The traditional travel writing industry is really in the fantasy business.

Apparently some people feel the veneer must be maintained because, in Smile When You're Lying, when Thompson explained how a lot of this nonsense simply amounts to re-summarizing other articles and doing web research, the industry took umbrage. Press releases flew about and a minor scandal (precious to any writer) was born.

To his credit, Thompson came out and said that the passages in question were really just a small part of the book -- which is true -- and really aren't such a big deal -- which is also true. The book as a whole is something of jumble -- part travel expose, part trip reporting, but mostly autobiographical. We are treated to extended sections on Thompson's adolescence in Juneau and his early adulthood as an ESL teacher in Japan. We then move on to his experiences with the standard travel industry as described above. He discusses some of this trips and then goes on to provide a long and rather tiresome explanation on what is the matter with Americans and their travel habits and how it is all related somehow to Bush/Cheney/Evil Corporations.

There is a class of travel writing, which can be thought of as "counter-travel." These sorts of books turn the fluffy stuff on its head, by writing about bad experiences, rip-offs, ugly hotels, and surly natives, with heavy doses of irony and snide humor. There are always semi-dangerous or quasi-illegal activities going on. Colorful expats play a crucial role. There is even a subclass of this sort of writing about white westerners opening bars in exotic foreign locales and, while they didn't make any money, they sure had a great time. Understand: these are real experiences. They are genuine. Your last trip to Cancun was pathetic by comparison.

The problem with counter-travel writing is that it's really just as bad as the fluff it counters, it simply defines itself by a different set of cliches. Instead of being studiously detached, it is personal to the point of a rant (it's all about Chuck). Instead of being carefully neutral and bland, it imbues each scene with opinion and judgment and sarcasm (that Chuck is quite a character). Instead of coddling, it is designed to challenge -- but one suspects it only challenges the appropriate sort of people (these would be the people who wish they could do the cool things Chuck does). You see, Chuck is a guy who has been there. Maybe one day, you will get there too. It's still a fantasy being sold.

If you are the right sort of people, you'll get a kick out of this book. Thompson has a solid fundamental game. He tells good stories. He shares my feelings about the Caribbean (overrated). His prose is lively and concise. He manages a just the right amount of self-depreciation when he's getting to be a bit too full of himself. In fact, chances are you are the right sort of person. You don't get a book contract without the publisher being confident in the size of the audience, and that means it probably includes you. So please, don't take my negativity as a reason not to buy the book. In fact, at the risk of contradicting everything I have just written, I hope Thompson keeps plugging away. He's clearly smart and funny guy and I would approach his next book with an open mind.

But I had hopes for an original voice in travel writing and I didn't get it. I got the cool cliche‚ instead of the square one. Interestingly, in my favorite chapter (the one on the Caribbean), he recounts a confounding comment made to him by David Swanson, a Caribbean guide book writer:

[Swanson said,] "In the middle of Curacao is a big oil refinery that belches soot all day. Right next to the oil refinery is the oldest Jewish cemetery in the new world...It sends chills up my spine. Because of all the soot the gravestones are eroding so badly you can't even read a lot of the names."

David put a bow on this enchanting package by saying something I immediately made him repeat...

"It's one of the coolest places I've been in the Caribbean."

Now there's a guy who should be writing a book; someone with that point of view has to be worth hearing out. Unfortunately, nobody has fantasies about soot-covered cemeteries.