A Trance After Breakfast: And Other Passages [Paperback]

Alan Cheuse (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1, 2009

A collection of lyrical travel writings from celebrated writer and NPR commentator Alan Cheuse.

Along with luggage and tickets, we always travel with that which it is impossible to leave behind: ourselves, our spirits, our souls. By definition the best travel writing carries us on a soul-journey, the sort of trip that dramatizes how the heart learns about its place in the world.

In A Trance After Breakfast, poetic wanderer and novelist (To Catch the Lightning) Alan Cheuse has crafted a collection that masterfully exceeds such standards. He lures the reader around the world, from Bali and New Zealand to Mexico and back home again to his native New Jersey, making the foreign familiar and the familiar slightly foreign.

Collected from such celebrated publications as Gourmet, the Antioch Review, and the San Diego Reader, the dispatches in A Trance After Breakfast will enchant, captivate, and transport readers.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Novelist, essayist, editor and NPR mainstay Cheuse (To Catch the Lightning, Listening to the Page) compiles a highly literate travelogue from material previously published in Gourmet, the Antioch Review and elsewhere. In "Reading the Archipelago," Cheuse's survey of Indonesia-centric literature is so compelling it will make readers want to pick up some Conrad and Melville. The clever "Thirty-five Passages Over Water" covers notable journeys, the parts that come before or after the destination, moving backward in time. "CODA: Two Oceans" evokes the Jersey native's Atlantic/Pacific memories. The title piece recounts Bali's atmosphere of spirituality, but isn't as strong as his reporting from the U.S.-Mexico border at San Ysidro: "the great crossing point, nexus of cultures, nexus of countries, nexus of vision, nexus of borderlands between first world and third"; he's just as piercing regarding the psychology of those who make the trip across. Though it starts slow, three Mexico narratives prove splendid enough to forgive; Cheuse's eclectic journeys shine a spotlight on one of the greatest rewards of travel, "to know... something quite valuable that had never occurred to us before."
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About the Author

Novelist, essayist, and story writer Alan Cheuse has been described as "The Voice of Books on NPR." He has written four novels, including the recent To Catch the Lightning, and a pair of novellas. He is also the editor of Seeing Ourselves: Great Early American Short Stories and co-editor of Writers' Workshop in a Book. He teaches writing at George Mason University.

Product Details

• Paperback: 247 pages
• Publisher: Sourcebooks, Inc. (June 1, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1402215169
• ISBN-13: 978-1402215162
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,014,349 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

ALAN CHEUSE


"The Voice of Books on National Public Radio"--that's how novelist, essayist and story writer Alan Cheuse has been described. For over twenty-five years, Cheuse has been "reading for America" every week on NPR, and he's also been writing a number of books of his own, and teaching the art of narrative and literature at George Mason University for over twenty years.
He is the author of the novels The Bohemians, The Grandmothers' Club and The Light Possessed. His latest novel, To Catch the Lightning (winner of the 2009 Grub Street Prize for Fiction), follows the career of turn of the century photographer Edward S. Curtis and his quest to photograph the western tribes of North America. He is also the author of several collections of short fiction and a pair of novellas published under the title The Fires. He is the co-editor with Nicholas Delbanco of Talking Horse: Bernard Malamud on Life and Art, and co-author with Delbanco of Literature: Craft & Voice, a major newly published introduction to college literary study, and also the co-editor of Writers Workshop in a Book: The Squaw Valley Community of Writers on the Art of Fiction, and editor of Listening to Ourselves: Great American Short Fiction.
Cheuse's essays, short stories, and reviews have appeared in numerous places, such as The New York Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, World Literature Today, The Antioch Review, Ploughshares, The Southern Review, and other venues. His essay collection, Listening to the Page, appeared in 2001. His collected travel essays came out in June 2009 under the title A Trance After Breakfast.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An Inspiring Armchair Journey, June 30, 2009

By 

Lynne Christen "Travel Wisdom" (Mary Esther, FL USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Trance After Breakfast: And Other Passages (Paperback)

Don't look to this travel book for the usual litany of hotel reviews, must-do/must-sees and amusing anecdotes. It is, as the title implies, a complex and commanding view of our diverse world and its peoples.

Alan Cheuse weaves in wonderful and woesome moments that occur when crossing borders and becoming fully immersed one's surroundings. My favorite part of the journey: The Watery Part of the World.

Read A Trance After Breakfast with an open mind and open heart. It is an intensly personal narrative that lingers in the heart and soul long after the journey ends.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The best travel writing carries us along on a soul-journey, May 28, 2009

By 

Helen Gallagher (Glenview, IL United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Trance After Breakfast: And Other Passages (Paperback)

Writers reading Alan Cheuse's work always learn something about being a better writer. We learn about structure, beauty, the unique turn of phrase no one else would use. We learn to write directly to the reader.

In reading "A Trance After Breakfast," you'll learn how to take your travel experience and make something it more. We observe Cheuse's simple narrative style, which succeeds because of his ability to remain aware. In doing so, he makes something more of himself because of his travels.

Most pieces in this book have appeared elsewhere, such as "Gourmet," "The San Diego Reader," and literary magazines. We tag along as Cheuse travels in Mexico, Bali, New Zealand, and less exotic locales, full of shared insights.

Two of the longer pieces, "Port of Entry" and "Mexican Rabbi," which explores Jewish cultural life in Mexico, first appeared in "The San Diego Reader." We see Cheuse as an extraordinary combination of the wandering traveler and self-described pilgrim. He tags along with the border guards in his poignant essay, "Port of Entry," observing San Ysidro Port of Entry, often called the world's busiest land border crossing. Cheuse lets us observe U.S. Customs officials as they manage the border crossing traffic. We peer into the lives of the border agents, who work two shifts each day, and witness the sad and scared eyes of people caught in desperate attempts to escape from Mexico to America, which he calls the "United States of Helpless Dreamers."

"A Trance After Breakfast" is a rich blend of travel and personal essays, and a model of narrative non-fiction only a good story-teller could weave. Release Your Writing: Book Publishing, Your Way

1 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars stick to your radio job, October 18, 2009

By 

Stephen Conn (Point Roberts, Washington) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Trance After Breakfast: And Other Passages (Paperback)

The author,a tenured professor in a third rate University, has elevated himself to a notable by using radio
essays on NPR and sticking to the NPR line. His writing is pathetic and would never be published, but for his
radio job. Don't trust me. Check it out for yourself. Remember a tree died for his pathetic effort.