Fat in Paris

NO CAMELS WERE HARMED IN THE MAKING OF THIS BOOK But the author was. He fell off a camel on the way to a Bedouin camp behind the pyramids; he was nearly burned alive in an Alabama boat fire; he ate rate soup on the Playa Major; he was attacked by bats in a Mexican cenote; he was, briefly, shark bait off the coast of Belize; nearly died from heat stroke on the Nile; and was savaged by a swarm of elderly Japanese women in a men's room at a gas station somewhere in Spain. Starting from Chicago, the author visits nine countries and various states with his significant [attorney] in an attempt to have a perfect vacation. It never works, but that doesn't stop him. The result is a hilarious f-bomb of a travelogue. Garlington holds nothing back, showing the maddening side of international travel without an Instagram filter. Readers will learn nothing useful about the cities he visits, nor will they use his book as a guide. It is more of a roadmap for ruthless schadenfreude as we watch helplessly while Garlington fails himself into a brick wall time after time. Written in a style reminiscent of a Bill Bryson if he were a rampaging drunk, or Anthony Bourdain, if he cussed less, Fat in Paris might be the funniest travel memoir in the last ten years. (Please note: this book contains scenes of inadvertent camel abuse, conspicuous tourism, sniveling, a luridly detailed account of testicular damage, a nearly unbelievable VERY DETAILED story of losing control of one's bodily functions, way too many footnotes, a plague of scorpions, and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir)