mattersmagazine.com 37 In Morocco, he got stranded during Ramadan and had to live for several days in an abandoned car. In the deserts of Balochistan, Pakistan, he was held up by bandits – an experience he calls “an exciting spectacle” and not especially scary. In Calcutta (today’s Kolkata, India), he declined a chance to meet Mother Teresa after donating a shirt to her mission (yes, he regrets this). While passing through Iran with several other expatriate travelers, he was repeatedly caught up in the massive social upheavals of the revolution that overthrew the Shah. Bangkok, Thailand, proved irresistible, and Mooney stayed a year, writing for a local business magazine. “The city was just so intoxicating,” he says. “The language was so musical yet so mysterious, the food was so good, and the people so amazingly friendly.” After returning to the U.S., Mooney found himself drawn back to Thailand every few years, and made it the honeymoon location for himself and his wife, Barbara Goldberg, a fellow journalist who works today for Reuters. Interspersed throughout the audiobook are memories of his father, Maurice, an erratic and often violent man, whom Mooney compares to a “very large jack-in-the-box.” Life with his father could seem normal and happy; but Mooney, his mother, and his siblings always lived with the knowledge that inevitably “the treacly jingle will stop, and a demented clown is going to leap out and make you jump, even though you’ve been waiting all along for it to happen.” “Memories of Maurice Xavier Mooney usually began with something that made our family want to laugh, but they usually ended up making us very angry. That anger largely vanished when the man was thousands of miles away,” he relates in the audiobook, putting his impulse to escape overseas in context. Listening to Mooney’s stories is a satisfying experience if you yearn to travel to faraway places. But ultimately, he says, more fascinating than the places themselves were the people he encountered, especially his fellow travelers–“thethousandsof peoplewholefthometodriftacrosscontinental divides, and what made them do it – and what made me do it.” Edie Sachs is a writer and editor in South Orange. She has never hitchhiked even once in her life. Favorite places she has traveled to include Alaska, London, the Netherlands, and Israel. Your Source For Cherished HOLIDAY + TEACHER GIFTS BUSY? SHOP 24/7 WORDSBOOKSTORE.COM 179 Maplewood Avenue | Maplewood, NJ 07040 | 973-763-9500 COLOR Ahairdressing boutique. www.stayndcolor.com | 2 Depot Plaza, Maplewood Village | 973-313-3100 25% OFF All retail items for December (excluding gift sets) Keep your color-treated hair strong. Ask about #SmartBond. “LookforusonYelpfornewclientdeals. ” AWarm,Nurturing Neighborhood Preschool Open to the Community!