A Few Perfect Hours And Other Stories From Southeast Asia And Central Europe [Paperback]

Josh Neufeld (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 24, 2011

Autobiographical cartoonist Josh Neufeld takes us on a dramatic tour of places as exotic and different as Thailand, the former Yugoslavia, and New York City. Highlights include Neufeld and traveling companion Sari Wilson on a volunteer expedition to an organic farm in Malaysia, their stint as extras in a Chinese-language Singaporean soap opera, a train trip through war-torn Serbia, and a near-disastrous cave adventure in Thailand. With gentle humor and a keen eye for the revelatory detail, Neufeld explores religion and spirituality, politics and personalities, and the mysteries of everyday life. His stories reflect the backpacker's conflicted feelings: a yearning for adventure mixed with homesickness and a sense of disconnection, trapped in a reality constantly in flux. In the collection's title story, Neufeld illustrates how the tensions and fears involved in travel through a strange country are dispelled by a Thai monk's blessing. In "On a Mission," Neufeld contrasts the viewpoints of American Baptist missionaries in northern Thailand with the traditions of a Buddhist festival. And in "Cremations, Cubicles & Cant," Neufeld juxtaposes his grandmother's Jewish funeral with a Hindu cremation ceremony he witnessed on Bali.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Neufeld and his girlfriend, Sari, have traveled all over the world, and like all travelers, they've come back with stories. Unlike most travelers, though, Neufeld makes a point of trying to understand what these stories mean, why he reacts to his experiences the way he does and what results from the friction between his own culture and the cultures where he's a tourist. That comes to a head in this work's final tale, "Cremations, Cubicles & Cant," in which Neufeld considers the death and funeral of his grandmother in the context of his travels, and the significance of funeral rites within and outside her community. In another story, Neufeld tries to imagine his uneasy interaction with a Serbian ice cream salesman from the other man's perspective. The book's highlight is "The Cave of Fear," a story about a day trip in Thailand. Neufeld is drawn to the trip's potential for danger, and what might ordinarily be a merely entertaining anecdote becomes the occasion for lucid, unsparing self-examination. Neufeld draws himself as a slightly neurotic caricature, and his backgrounds show how salient details can be reduced to a few clear lines. He has an appealingly clean visual style and uses it to highlight the differences between his tourist self and his surroundings.
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From Booklist

Travel sometimes figures in other autobiographical comics, but Neufeld, with a few written contributions by his companion, Sari Wilson, here pioneers the travel book in comics. In the early 1990s, when he and Wilson were in their mid-twenties, they backpacked in Southeast Asia and later, during a year in Prague, in Central Europe. Although Neufeld offers some illustrated "travel tips"--on such nitty-gritty topics as "Bathing in the Tropics" and "Gynecology on the Go" (a Wilson piece)--the book is far more valuable as a memoir than for its tourist information. Unencumbered by group-travel agendas and timetables, the couple had genuine adventures. They spelunked, dangerously, and overnighted with Baptist missionaries (Neufeld and Wilson are very secular Jews) in Thailand; farm-labored for an evening in Malaysia; were extras in a Singapore TV show; and served as English-practice-givers for an ice-cream man on a hot train laid over in Belgrade. Neufeld's comics style is straightforwardly presentational, with few odd angles and broad variation in the amount of detail rendered, which seems perfect for this material. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Paperback: 128 pages
• Publisher: Alternative Comics (May 24, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1891867792
• ISBN-13: 978-1891867798
• Product Dimensions: 9.9 x 6.5 x 0.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,268,923 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

JOSH NEUFELD is the writer/artist of the bestselling nonfiction graphic novel A.D.: NEW ORLEANS AFTER THE DELUGE (Pantheon, 2009). In addition, he is the illustrator of the bestselling graphic nonfiction book THE INFLUENCING MACHINE: BROOKE GLADSTONE ON THE MEDIA (2011). He was awarded a publishing grant from the Xeric Foundation in 2004 for his first book, A FEW PERFECT HOURS (AND OTHER STORIES FROM SOUTHEAST ASIA & CENTRAL EUROPE). Neufeld's work has been nominated for a number of awards, including the Eisner Award and the Harvey Award for A.D. His books have been translated into French and Dutch. Neufeld's illustrations have appeared in such publications as the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal. He lives in Brooklyn, New York, with his wife and daughter.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars another traveler logs in on this book, November 9, 2004

By 

Max Becher "Andrea Robbins and Max Becher" (robbinsbecher.com) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A Few Perfect Hours And Other Stories From Southeast Asia And Central Europe (Paperback)

This book is an education for travelers (note: even the armchair sort). While the subtext for the reader is a couple figuring out distant places with common sense, intellect, and humor (in outstanding drawings that fill each frame!!!), the real draw is in the lovingly rendered and often hilarious details of a Sri Lankan airplane and it's passengers, a Balinese bathroom, a perilous underground cave, and a Singapore Soap Opera set that is supposed to represent Chinatown, NYC (my personal favorite), just to name a few. This book would be a great gift for a graduate (either high school or college). It is a first rate introduction to the real joys and challenges of shoe string travel, and it is chock full of useful information(!). It made me smile and laugh out loud many times as memories flooded back to me about my own many wide eyed trips. It is aptly titled for the quest of it's author, and for the pleasure it gives the reader.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A fascinating & unusual book, November 12, 2004

By 

A. Davis (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A Few Perfect Hours And Other Stories From Southeast Asia And Central Europe (Paperback)

"A Few Perfect Hours" isn't the kind of work you can easily peg: A graphic novel, it's also the kind of compelling travel writing that takes you on a journey both inside and beyond yourself, to off-the-beaten-path adventures in countries that no longer exist precisely the way they did when Josh & his wife Sari once traveled the globe. The result is a journey in time as well as one between borders. With pieces ranging from humorous to thought-provoking, Neufeld shows he is as capable of fascinating us with his writing as he is with his illustrations. Both bear up to several visits. In fact, it might be worth reading the whole book through once for the stories, again for the visuals, and at least once more to explore how the two interact.

A tip-off to the care he took inside, Neufeld packaged his work in an impressive form (paper, ink, and front and back matter) that makes "A Few Perfect Hours" a beautiful book that stands apart on the shelf. The result is a very readable, rewarding graphic novel that would be equally perfect tucked in a backpack or lying on a coffeetable.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Gorgeous book, Perfect title, November 17, 2004

By 

Zoe Zolbrod (Chicago, IL) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: A Few Perfect Hours And Other Stories From Southeast Asia And Central Europe (Paperback)

What a lovely book! The title conveys the sense perfectly. These finely drawn stories capture the moments any traveller will recognize, when throwing yourself at the mercy of the world leaves you exposed not only to things mind-blowingly new but also to your own template--sensory memories, childhood perceptions, early hurts and wonderings. Any reader who is interested in travel will appreciate this book, whether or not she usually likes comics. A FEW PERFECT HOURS works on so many levels, I've found myself leaving it out and turning to it again and again.