Undress Me In The Temple Of Heaven, Susan Jane Gilman

Publisher's Copy:

Undress Me In The Temple Of Heaven is a riveting, funny, but harrowing true story -- a modern-day heart of darkness full of Communist operatives, backpackers, and pancakes. In 1986, Gilman and a friend planned an ambitious trek across the globe starting in the People's Republic of China. At that point, China had been open to independent backpackers for roughly ten minutes. Armed only with the collected works of Nietzsche and Linda Goodman's Love Signs, the two young women plunged into the dusty streets of Shanghai. Unsurprisingly, they quickly found themselves in over their heads -- hungry, disoriented, stripped of everything familiar, under constant government surveillance, and ensnared in rural China. What began as a journey full of humor, eroticism and enlightenment grew sinister -- becoming a real-life international thriller that changed them forever. Undress Me in the Temple of Heaven is a powerful, inspiring story for our times –a tale of being thoroughly humbled and helpless, yet
surviving. It is also a flat-out page turner told with Gilman's trademark compassion, lyricism, and wit.

My Review:

The idea of two young girls backpacking through China in the mid-1980's, when tourism was limited at best and communication was very difficult once you got there, is such a stunningly bad idea, that I couldn't get past that.

I found this true story un-even and didn't come to like the 2 main people involved. As one would expect in a tale like this very, very many things went wrong and seemingly only turned out well by the kindness of strangers.

I wouldn't bother with this one. It was o.k., but not really worth the time in my humble opinion.