A dispatch from a foreign land, when crafted by an attentive and
skilled writer, can be magical, transmitting pleasure, drama, and
seductive strangeness.
In "The Moon, Come to Earth, " Philip Graham offers an expanded
edition of a popular series of dispatches originally published on
"McSweeney's," an exuberant yet introspective account of a year's
sojourn in Lisbon with his wife and daughter. Casting his attentive
gaze on scenes as broad as a citywide arts festival and as small as
a single paving stone in a cobbled walk, Graham renders Lisbon from
a perspective that varies between wide-eyed and knowing; though
he's unquestionably not a tourist, at the same time he knows he
will never be a local. So his lyrical accounts reveal his struggles
with (and love of) the Portuguese language, an awkward meeting with
Nobel laureate Jose Saramago, being trapped in a budding soccer
riot, and his daughter's challenging transition to adolescence
while attending a Portuguese school--but he also waxes loving about
Portugal's "saudade"-drenched music, its inventive cuisine, and its
vibrant literary culture. And through his humorous,
self-deprecating, and wistful explorations, we come to know Graham
himself, and his wife and daughter, so that when an unexpected
crisis hits his family, we can't help but ache alongside
them.
A thoughtful, finely wrought celebration of the moment-to-moment
excitement of diving deep into another culture and confronting
one's secret selves, "The Moon, Come to Earth" is literary travel
writing of a rare intimacy and immediacy.
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