BOOK YOUR VACATION
Where so many adventure authors go wrong is in making the tale all about them, forgetting that it’s far more enjoyable to learn about the storyteller through the story rather than directly from the teller. Peter Stark, a frequent contributor to Outside magazine, avoids this trap in “At the Mercy of the River” ($24.95, Ballantine Books), an easygoing read about kayaking down Mozambique’s Lugenda River. While it’s possible he could have used the word “I” a bit less, Stark deftly weaves the story of five disparate temperaments on a bare-bones journey in an unforgiving environment, and he does it without the self-reverential I Don’t Shave, Therefore I Am an Outdoors Writer kind of tone occasionally found in Outside. Along the way, Stark must deal with his discomfort at being handed orders by a woman, confronts the irony of paying people wages that seem outrageous at the time but are less than the price of a Starbucks cappuccino, and figures out how to outrun hippos. Not to mention the sheer physical exhaustion of it all, from the way the river forces the group to conduct rocky portages to the long days of steady paddling and brutal rapids. The line that best captures the spirit of the book, though, comes as the 48-year-old Stark is about to fall asleep in camp after a particularly brutal day: “You know … I’m sore all over, I have diarrhea, and there are lions out there, but I’m strangely content.”
