You had plans for both of us/That involved a trip out of town/To a place I've seen in a magazine

Undress Me in the Temple of Heaven - Susan Jane Gilman

     

            Susan and her friend Claire are two soon-to-be graduates from an Ivy League college, discussing their post-graduation futures very early one morning at an International House of Pancakes restaurant when they spontaneously decide to take the first year after graduation and backpack across the world. And where do they decide to start? Well, since its 1986, and the People's Republic of China just opened for Western tourists, they decide to start there despite not even knowing another living soul on the entire continent of Asia or even basic knowledge of the local languages?  Of course not!  You can't make this up...

            If you just take this book's title and cover artwork featuring naked woman wearing only a dark pair of sunglasses and an oversized backpack ate her front you would be forgiven for thinking that Undress Me in the Temple of Heaven could be pretty risqué. Instead, Gilman provides the reader with a funny travel memoir that reads more like fiction than fact and at times more like a mystery than anything else.

Gilman's memoir starts with the pair of recent college graduates beginning their journey in British controlled Hong Kong as they set out on their culture shock filled adventure through China, both in the big cities and small “villages.” As would be expected, Susan and Claire encounter a number of unexpected cases of cultural miscommunication, colorful people (backpackers and locals alike), and the ever present fear that the do something wrong and get in trouble with the communist government. However, as Claire begins to suspect that they're being watched and followed, the book begins to take on undertones of something more than just a simple travel memoir.

And to think staying up late, eating pancakes at the International House of Pancakes turned into "OMG let's backpack China!!!!"

 As the story unfolds, Gilman is able to intertwine both the travel story with the possibility that everything about their journey may not be what it appears to be.  At times, the reader can't tell exactly what is going on with Susan and Claire's trip, since Gilman herself was just in the dark with what was going on, who you can trust, and will happen around the next corner.  Are Susan and Claire really just two young, American tourists, or are they, especially Claire, on the trip for a more sinister reason?  What is Claire doing when she wanders off from time to time to be by herself? Is Claire on some clandestine CIA mission unbeknownst to Susan?

            As someone who loves to travel but finds the prospect of backpacking both daunting and utterly unappealing, I was completely surprised by how much I really loved this book. It was one of those cases when you pick up a book, start reading it, and before you realize that the book is so engrossing that before you realize, it's 6 AM the following morning. Gilman creates an entertaining, interesting, and frightening account of a trip gone bad that I almost couldn't put down, and definitely recommend to read.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.