Spiritland [Paperback]

Nava Renek (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 15, 2002

Spiritland follows the journey of Maddy Foster as she travels through the fringe world of backpackers, drug dealers, Vietnam Vets, and other ex-pats living in Thailand. During MaddyÕs first week in Bangkok, she discovers a notice on a travelerÕs bulletin board where parents are seeking information about their missing daughter.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Nava Renek's Spiritland moves with all the intensity and subtlety of an Asian tiger it is at once both beautiful and powerful. Her character Maddy Foster wavers in a modern-day purgatory between the ancient and the addicted, ancestral spirits and the spiritually lost. Her exquisite descent into hell is recorded with such a poetic realism it reads as if Dante himself had updated Let's Go Thailand 2002. Arthur Nersesian, author of The Fuck-Up --Author Blurb

Spiritland is beautifully written, original, compelling, spare and dark. I read it in one sitting; I couldn't put it down, and when I'd finished it I felt as if I'd been on an exotic, risky, strange trip myself. Kate Christensen, author of In The Drink --Author Blurb

About the Author

Nava Renek has traveled extensively in Europe, Southeast Asia, Mexico and the United States, and lived in various parts of the world including Singapore, London, and San Francisco. She received her MFA from Brooklyn College where she works as a program coordinator for the Women's Center. She is also editor of Wreckage of Reason: An Anthology of Experimental Prose by Contemporary Women Writers. Her second novel, No Perfect Words, was published in 2009.

Product Details

• Paperback: 230 pages
• Publisher: Spuyten Duyvil (October 15, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1881471578
• ISBN-13: 978-1881471578
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 5.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,749,128 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Nava Renek's short stories and non-fiction have appeared in a number of literary magazines, newspapers, and websites, including www.hipmama.com, www.respiro.org, Zone 3 and The MacGuffin. Her first novel, SPIRITLAND, was published in 2002 and another, NO PERFECT WORDS, is forthcoming in Fall 2009. She is also editor of WRECKAGE OF REASON: ANTHOLOGY OF XXPERIMENTAL PROSE BY CONTEMPORARY WOMEN WRITERS (Spuyten Duyvil 2008).

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The real "Beach", March 7, 2004

By 

Joseph Kohout Jr. "The Art of War" (NJ, United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Spiritland (Paperback)

Having been a frequent visitor to LOS ("land of smiles" AKA Thailand) since my first trip in 1994, I find the premise to be highly believable. While I admittedly have little in common with the Khao San Road backpacker set, I have borne witness to the often vacant eyed legions trudging up and down Sukumvit Road and even have an acquaintance or two that came very near to going over the edge.

Where Alex Garland's "The Beach" is fantasy, Nava Renek's "Spiritland" is reality. Starting the day at 3PM with a "joint" and a Singha, staying up all night getting trashed while watching bootleg videos on outdoor TV's and repeating the cycle. No worries. When the money runs out it is easy to believe that a person will do anything to avoid the "jumbo" home.

I really liked everything about this book and found the believability factor to be quite high with the possible exception of the "gorgeous" French girl working in the Thai owned go-go bar in Chiang Mai. While it is known that there are Caucasian women (mostly from the former Soviet Union) that ply their trade in Thailand, I have yet to hear of any that actually danced at a go-go.

I am quite a fan of the genre (Asian theme fiction) and read Spiritland in two sittings. I only hope that author continues along the line.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Spiritland - A story of the dark side of backpacker travel, November 24, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Spiritland (Paperback)

Have you ever wondered what would happen if you gave up your job, school, your apartment, your belongings, and bought one of those cheap airplane tickets to India or Thailand? This novel lays it out for you in vivid imagery and straightforward old fashion storytelling. The main character, Maddy Foster, makes that brave move-gives up everything--but finds herself adrift in Thailand with nothing to hold on to or believe in. Soon after arriving, Maddy becomes obsessed by a notice on a traveler's bulletin board where parents are searching for an American girl just like herself. In order to fill her void and give meaning to her trip, Maddy embarks on an informal search for this lost girl, while simultaneously letting her own life fall into some kind of private hell. Along the way, Maddy gets caught up with Western drug dealers, Vietnam Vets, prostitutes, and other ex-pats who have chosen to give up their relatively comfortable lives in the first world to establish lives dictated by fate, risk, and chance in a foreign country. In the end, Maddy's redemption comes from the fact that she's kept a diary and through the diary she can recreate the story that becomes the novel.

This novel's a page turner, full of lots of details about backpacker culture and the Thai's attitude about turning their country over to tourism. Sit down to read Spiritland when you have a few hours to give over to an enchanting and frightening trip to Southeast Asia.

3.0 out of 5 stars BROOKLYN BILDUNGSROMAN-- A City College Girl Somewhere Over the Rainbow, February 25, 2011

By 

Scot Bedford "buk guru" - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Spiritland (Paperback)

CUNY girl falls off the grid and into a bottle of Meikong Whiskey with her layabout boyfriend in a hostel on Khao San Road, Bangkok. On p. 1 she sees a poster for a missing white chick-- like they put up in the States for lost dogs and cats. This foreshadows a plot mechanism for a search for Cara Duryey. This supplies a "reason" to drink, drug, wander about in semi dangerous places, and write a book. A good description of a spirit house is rendered early on. Thai history is communicated insightfully and swiftly. And, it is refreshing to read a novel about Bangkok not about randy farangs whose raison d' tre is chasing bar girls. Our intrepid traveler, Maddy, boogies to Chiang Mai. The influence of Western culture recedes; no more rock and roll. In a page out of MIDNIGHT EXPRESS Maddy visits the harrowing prison and gets up close and personal with the skeletal, virus plagued American dealers and mules. Her companion, Ben, it is explained-- was left as a child with relatives in Portland, Or. while his hippie parents ran off to an artists colony in Mexico. Poor Ben self-medicates his psyche with drugs and alchohol. Ben decides to ride the H Train full time and heads up north solo with his beady pupils and greasy hair in pursuit of his grail-- pure cheap heroin. It is appararent SPIRITLAND is a roman a clef for Nava Renek i.e. you cant make this stuff up. Maddy gets into a wierd groupie dynamic with a doomed ex-pat in Chiang Mai prison. This narration is disquieting and disconcerting. Maddy cultivates an opium smoking habit which blossoms into paranoia coupled subsequently with malaria. Maddy wanders up to a backwater hole-in-the wall village named Fang; about to embark on adventures with Vietnam vet drug dealers suffering from PTS. Stories about mental illness are not "entertaining" to Buk Guru. Nataly Portman's schizophrenia in BLACKSWAN is not entertainment in my view; also, mental illness brought on by recreational drug use is not my idea of a good read. Our traveler Maddy hangs out with Jake, the 50 year old Vietnam Vet with PTS disorder. Jake likes to get young white kids to mule heroin so they can wind up in a Thai prison. Maddy figures she may as well hook up with him, too. Maddy chases the dragon with Jake and then mules some heroin. She travels to Malaysia solo and dries out a little. She re-news her visa and hangs out with her French prostitute buddy Juliette and they snort heroin too. NR should make a note-- next time she decides to travel she should do it with adult supervision. In the end the book degenerates into heroin junkies in Thailand-- all about mulin it, dealin it, comin up, comin down, paranoia, and Aids. This is not my idea of a good time. The descent into hell from using heroin can happen just as rapidly right here in the good ole USA. You dont have to be a "traveler" in the Land of Smiles to have this experience. This book is not for me. Oh yeah, before "Maddy" gets deported for dealing smack she gets to turn Judas Brutus on all her friends and serve them up on a platter to the Thai police so all Maddies friends get to rot in Chiang Mai prison while she jets back to her life as an adjunct professor in CUNY college. Pssst! Maddie-- the IRS pays rewards if you turn in all your friends who cheat on their taxes. Oh, bye the bye, Cary Duryea, the girl on the wanted poster, has been hiding the whole time in plain site as a no good skank dealer who is riding the main line and hates her parents and disappeared herself. Cary gets to be Maddy's buddy. They get to be the Thelma and Louise of low level H dealers. Oh, Maddy gets to turn Cary in too. A cautionary tale? Or-- just a book that didn't need writing.