Weightless Books

When he married for the second time, Jay Keyser thought he and his wife would settle down on a bucolic little farm where the cows meet the sea. That was before he found out the awful truth: he had married a travel junkie. While he was envisioning walks along quiet beaches, her sights were set on stakeouts beside Tanzani’s Grumeti River watching crocodiles take down baboons. He didn’t want to come within 6,000 miles of a crocodile, let alone 6 feet. But, somehow, he couldn’t let Nancy go it alone. And so, for the past 15 years, Jay Keyser has followed his wife around this treacherous world. This is his chronicle. Our reluctant traveler did his level best to understand the extraordinary people and places he visited as well as his internal conflict. He gradually began to accept profound differences between his wife and himself. Although terrified by them, he has learned from his experiences, most especially from an encounter with an angry female gorilla, who offered key insight into marriage and human nature. Jay Keyser learned to stop and smell the elephant dung.

Posted on Tuesday, July 31st, 2012 at 4:00 am.