June 25, 2012
In this carefully modulated record of self-discovery, actor turned travel writer McCarthy finds in far-flung, solitary sojourns from Patagonia to Kilimanjaro a way finally to commit to marrying his longtime Irish girlfriend. Having stumbled into fame as a 19-year-old NYU student playing the “vulnerable and sensitive” male lead roles in films such as Pretty in Pink and St. Elmo’s Fire, McCarthy falls into drinking as a way of wrestling with his emotional ambivalence and self-reservations. Travel allows him the freedom of anonymity, forcing him “to rely on instinct and intuition” rather than vanity, and now sober in middle age, he finds new motivation in pursuing stories for National Geographic Travel. Tidily divided into trips he pursued around the world, and framed around amorphous plans for his marriage with D in Dublin after a four-year-engagement and raising their five-year-old daughter, this rather bland memoir tries to confront the author’s relentless need to shy and duck. Impressionistic moments such as venturing out onto the Perito Moreno Glacier in Patagonia, riding down the Amazon, mingling among other “escapees” in the gold-mining Osa Peninsula of Costa Rica, and riding the clamor of a family outing in Vienna help release, if reluctantly bit by bit, his solitariness. Remote and diffident, McCarthy confronts very real male fears of being stifled and restrained.
September 15, 2012
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 fiancee 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.--Olga B. Wise, Austin, TX
Copyright 2012 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
August 1, 2012
Former 1980s heartthrob actor McCarthy embraces world travel to make sense of life after movie stardom. The author's debut is a linked series of introspective essays inspired by his extended trips to Patagonia, Spain, the Amazon, Costa Rica, Baltimore, Vienna, Kilimanjaro and Dublin. McCarthy, who writes for National Geographic Traveler, among other publications, is a fair writer with adequate descriptive powers at his disposal. However, much of the prose lacks wit and originality, and though he has traveled to some extraordinary places, what's lacking here are extraordinary experiences. McCarthy often writes about the therapeutic qualities associated with traveling solo and the psychological advantages of anonymity while visiting a strange, remote place. Whether he's walking alone in Spain, taking a group river cruise down the Amazon or slurping coffee in Vienna with his family, McCarthy's writing slips deep into the intensely personal territory of memory. But with so much inner searching, even the most exotic surroundings fade into an amorphous blur to accommodate the author's personal life. In fact, there's rarely a point where readers will feel that the author has connected to his surroundings in a significant way. Although driven by Paul Theroux's ideas about wisdom being best acquired by traveling alone, McCarthy's ruminations on the meaning of solitary experience in relation to his surroundings never quite penetrate the ordinary. A clunky mix of memoir and travelogue that only occasionally does justice to either form.
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September 15, 2012
Who knew that McCarthy, a familiar face on the big screen (St. Elmo's Fire, Pretty in Pink) and the small (Law & Order, Monk), is also a noted travel writer! An editor at large for National Geographic Traveler and winner of several awards (including Travel Journalist of the Year), he contributes travel articles to numerous publications, and his work has appeared in the anthology The Best American Travel Writing. This is not some memoir written by an actor who fancies himself a world traveler. McCarthy really is a world travelerand a damned fine writer, too. The book features eight destinationsNew York, Patagonia, the Amazon, the Osa, Vienna, Baltimore, Kilimanjaro, and Dublinand, along the way, McCarthy explores himself, too, introducing us to a man whose love for life is matched only by his love for the woman he would eventually marry (and whose growing importance to McCarthy is a thread that runs throughout the book). To readers who think, Andrew McCarthy? Really? the answer is a resounding and emphatic yes. Really.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)