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The Black Penguin

Andrew Evans (Goodreads Author)

4.29 · Rating details · 226 ratings · 34 reviews

A devout young boy in rural Ohio, Andrew Evans had his life mapped for him: baptism, mission, Brigham Young University, temple marriage, and children of his own. But as an awkward gay kid, bullied and bored, he escaped into the glossy pages of National Geographic and the wide promise of the world atlas. The Black Penguin is Evans's memoir, travel tale, and love story of hi ...more

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Hardcover, 304 pages

Published April 25th 2017 by University of Wisconsin Press (first published 2017)

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Apr 28, 2017 Vera Marie rated it it was amazing

Shelves: travel-memoir

This fascinating memoir can be read two ways. It gives us a marvelously detailed picture of an overland journey from Washington D.C. to the Antarctic. But it is also a part of a series called "Living Out: Gay and Lesbian Autobiographies", published by the University of Wisconsin Press.
The title and cover photo emphasize the Antarctic and the black penguin, a rare bird that doesn't fit in with the tuxedo-clad King and tiny Adélie penguins crowding the icy land. That unique all-black bird makes an This fascinating memoir can be read two ways. It gives us a marvelously detailed picture of an overland journey from Washington D.C. to the Antarctic. But it is also a part of a series called "Living Out: Gay and Lesbian Autobiographies", published by the University of Wisconsin Press.
The title and cover photo emphasize the Antarctic and the black penguin, a rare bird that doesn't fit in with the tuxedo-clad King and tiny Adélie penguins crowding the icy land. That unique all-black bird makes an appropriate metaphor for Andrew Evans, who grew up as a devout Mormon, but was expelled from his beloved church because he is gay. First they tried to reform him, and he tried to conform, but he could not change any more than the melanistic penguin could choose to look like his brothers. Although Andrew Evans has found a partner he loves and a satisfying life, there is still a hole where the routines and rules and rituals of the church used to be.

However, if you are looking at this as the memoir of a travel writer, the cover and title are somewhat misleading. The book is not about the Antarctic. The continent stirred the curiosity of the young, geography-obssessed boy and became a lifelong dream. Now it is the goal of the journey but does not take center stage until the very end of the book.

As travel literature, the fascination of The Black Penguin lies in the difficulties Evans has undertaken by choosing to travel only by bus all the way12,000 miles through the Southern USA, Central America and South America. He has already achieved the travel writer's Holy Grail--an assignment from Keith Bellows at National Geographic Magazine. When Bellows asked if it was even possible to travel all the way by bus, Evans fudged the truth and answered with an enthusiastic 'yes.'

Maybe not.

But the rides on buses varying from sleek, modern air-conditioned marvels to Central American "chicken buses" provide a different view of the countryside along the way, and allow Evans to introduce us to an array of interesting characters. The long bus ride also provides the writer ample opportunity to ponder his life and gracefully weave thoughts about Andrew Evans, former Mormon and gay man into the story of Andrew Evans, travel writer on an adventure.

The writing is skillful. The story is compelling and well worth your time. ...more

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Aug 03, 2017 Jim Coughenour rated it it was ok

Shelves: gaiety, armchairtravel

Andrew Evans would be the perfect guy to sit next to on a long bus-trip – bright, well-traveled, friendly and unpretentious – and he's definitely your guy if the bus bangs into a cow in the middle of the night or slides sideways off a muddy road in the misty Andes. But you may want to bring along a thermos of Sleepy Time tea, and a couple Ambien.

For The Black Penguin he's taken his partly-published epic of a journey by bus from Washington DC to Tierra del Fuego, and interspersed it with memoiret Andrew Evans would be the perfect guy to sit next to on a long bus-trip – bright, well-traveled, friendly and unpretentious – and he's definitely your guy if the bus bangs into a cow in the middle of the night or slides sideways off a muddy road in the misty Andes. But you may want to bring along a thermos of Sleepy Time tea, and a couple Ambien.

For The Black Penguin he's taken his partly-published epic of a journey by bus from Washington DC to Tierra del Fuego, and interspersed it with memoirettes of growing up a gay & geeky Mormon boy in Findlay, Ohio – plus some excruciating revels at BYU, where he opted to out his fellow fags. This isn't The End of Eddy; it's the start of Andrew, and he's dragging his feet.

As a kid who also consumed piles of my grandparents' National Geographic collection, I enjoyed the extended bus trip picaresque; I was much less patient with the protracted psychodrama of Andrew's coming out. One awful chapter from his late 20s or early 30s has him groveling before a Waddle of tetchy patriarchs who want to him marry a woman and sire a child pronto, never mind the boyfriend. Even then it takes a few more pages and tearful visits before he can tell the excommunicators to go to hell. The requisite head-held-high, back-turned, thank-god-I'm-free-to-be-me epiphany doesn't come until late in the book, maybe 15 years after it would have made emotional sense. As anyone who's exited the Godly closet could have told him (and probably did) there's no negotiating with theocrats. Kick the doctrines in the balls and strike out on your own path. Tweet if you must, but disentangle, disencumber, and hook up with someone who makes you laugh.

That expectoration aside…

There are similar Lonely Gay Men Travel The Lonely Planet books out there; the ones I've read are much starker, more terrifying, sadder and better crafted. The Black Penguin is an annotated Twitter feed, and has all the virtues of its form. Andrew makes his ship on time. Everyone is happy, including the boyfriend to whom Andrew proposes from the Antarctic rookery. At the end he snaps a photo of a very unusual black penguin. Is it a symbol or sign? For me it meant we'd finally found the title and we could all fly back home. ...more

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May 14, 2017 Libbie Buchele rated it it was amazing

I have often liked an author after finishing their book, but in this case, I liked the author first, and then read his book. I'm happy to say that the book is just as likeable as the author. It is partially a travel book and partially a memoir of growing up Mormon and gay in middle America. I wasn't sure the combination would work, but it does.

It an engaging read, and the sweetness and warmth that make this author so special as a person really shine through in the book. I loved reading it. At t ...more

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Apr 11, 2019 Sheryl rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: lgbt, memoir, nonfiction, kindle

Absolutely fantastic! Andrew Evans is an excellent writer and his book is fascinating. I had to force myself to take my time with it so that I didn’t finish it too quickly. Part memoir, part travel journal, I was amazed by all of it. I think this book could be hugely popular if only it would get more notice. You might have a hard time finding it at your local library since it’s from a university press, but it is well worth the money to buy it. (My library did have a copy but I bought one for mys ...more

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Jul 21, 2017 Scott Abbott rated it it was amazing

A couple of weeks ago John Fowles, a former student of mine when I was teaching in the BYU Department of Germanic and Slavic Languages, wrote me from China, where he was on business. “I’ve been reading your ‘non-memoir’ Immortal for Quite Some Time,” he said, “and like it very much.” He had just read another book, The Black Penguin, by Andrew Evans, whom he had known at Oxford, and thought I might find it interesting.

I did.

Andrew Evans grew up in a large Mormon family in Ohio. He was bullied mer A couple of weeks ago John Fowles, a former student of mine when I was teaching in the BYU Department of Germanic and Slavic Languages, wrote me from China, where he was on business. “I’ve been reading your ‘non-memoir’ Immortal for Quite Some Time,” he said, “and like it very much.” He had just read another book, The Black Penguin, by Andrew Evans, whom he had known at Oxford, and thought I might find it interesting.

I did.

Andrew Evans grew up in a large Mormon family in Ohio. He was bullied mercilessly in school. He loved geography passionately. He was a foreign-exchange student in France. He served an LDS mission in Ukraine. He was a student at BYU, where the institutional bullying was intense. He studied at Oxford, where he met the man who would eventually become his husband. He was excommunicated by the Mormons, whose community he desired. He approached National Geographic with a proposal to travel from Washington D.C. by a series of busses to Antartica, documenting his journey through social media. They liked the idea and the lively account of the precarious trip forms the narrative backbone of the book.

The Black Penguin was a window for me into the experiences and feelings of a gay Mormon. I had written about my gay brother John, also a Mormon, and had done so as well as I could. But as a straight man, I was an outsider to much of the life he led. Andrew Evans filled some of the gaps.

Evans was remarkably open with his ecclesiastical leaders about his desire for intimacy with men rather than with women. At BYU those leaders were remarkably ready to cure him of those desires: “You can start by lowering your voice. . . . And change the way you walk. Men walk tall and proud, head up, shoulders out. . . . If you start acting like a real man, then you’ll become a real man.” His art major, the Bishop advises, will surround him with homosexuals. Still awkwardly between his desire and his belief in the truth of the Mormon gospel, he becomes a geography major. None of this works, of course, and he has his first sexual experiences with a ballet dancer.

He ends up in a Vice President’s office who threatens to expel him and freeze his transcripts so they won’t transfer. That’s option A. But the kind man has a second option: “First, you will attend reparative therapy. We have a whole team of professionals who have been quite successful in correcting same-sex attraction.” Evans knows students who had agreed to such treatment and who were made to throw up while watching gay porn or who were shocked with electrodes attached to their genitals. Second, he is forbidden to associate with homosexuals. “Finally, you must write down a list of names of each and every homosexual you know on campus.” Evans reflects on the impossibility of this: “One page was not enough—there were hundreds, probably thousands, of gay students at BYU, some closeted and most of them terribly repressed. The vice president had to know that, didn’t he? But no—he didn’t. He thought he could weed us out like cockroaches on the kitchen floor.” It is an impossible choice. Evans agonizes. He is gay. He has friends who are gay. He has almost earned a college degree. He doesn’t want to be a victim or a martyr. “And so I picked up the piece of paper, set it on the desk, and began to write.”

Never, never have I read a sentence like that. It is an absolutely damning admission. Whose names did he write? Whose lives did he put in jeopardy? Whose trust did he betray?

Then my focus changes. Who sits in a seat of power and forces a young man to make a decision like that? An evil man serving an evil system. Goddamn both the man and the system.

There is a scene later in the book when a mostly sympathetic Bishop in England who has called Evans to be the primary chorister is required by Church leaders in Salt Lake to call him in and ask if he is a pedophile and then, again on their command, to release him from the position.

The stories are heartbreaking. The tensions arise because Evans is so intimately connected to the Church, because he loves it and its people, because he is a believer. Other than his relationship with the man he will marry and sweetly call “honey” in the book, he is a Mormon, wants to be a Mormon, practices as a Mormon. And the bastards ask if he is a pedophile and ultimately excommunicate him in a goddamned “court of love.”

Near the end of his harrowing journey, riding a bus across a thousand-mile stretch of the Pampas of Argentina, Evans says

“I saw my own childhood in the landscape—I imagined the awkward school dances, the ticking hours in church pews, and the family expectations to grow up and be as vacant and fertile as the land, framed only by evenly knotted barbed wire fences.”

And I end my account here, grateful for The Black Penguin, with a passage from nineteenth-century barbed wire advertising: “It watches with argus eyes the inside and outside, up, down and lengthwise; it prevents the ‘ins’ from being ‘outs’; and the ‘outs’ from being ‘ins’; watches at day-break, at noontide, at sunset and all night long.” ...more

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Nov 23, 2017 Barbara Nutting rated it it was amazing

Since it is Thanksgiving Day I will say I am grateful I had the opportunity to read this book. It was a beautiful adventure by buses from Washington DC to Antarctica. I would have titled it “At the End of the Rainbow”.🌈 It was a story of love and hate and redemption. So well written, “mashed potatoes in the
sky ” describing clouds. I was expecting a tale of penguins and instead traveled on this journey with Andrew via my globe and world map. It also pointed out the narrow-minded attitude of the ...more

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Aug 15, 2017 Guðlaugur Kristmundsson rated it it was amazing

This book by Andrew was fascinating. I have been lucky to get to know Andrew through my line of work and was thrilled to read his personal memoir mixed up with a bus ride to the Antartica. The book intertwines three stories at the same time - and sometimes even added my own. At times the read of the journey on a bus to the Antartica from DC was tiresome - probably a portion of what the real bus ride was for Andrew. He was able to bring emotions from the bus ride, the thrill and the love from his ...more

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Mar 10, 2018 Brittany rated it it was amazing

I finally get why it's called The Black Penguin... and it's so much better to not know going into the book because the discovery as you travel along Andrew's side makes the surprise even better. ...more

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Jun 25, 2017 Jake rated it it was amazing

Shelves: non-fiction, biography, science, religion

Vaguely annoyed. That’s how I felt after months of following Andrew Evans on Twitter. When was this guy’s paid vacation going to end? Did he really think he could infect me with his exuberance for world travel? Who was funding him? Annoying! The only reason I followed Andrew was Twitter told me to. That and it seemed a little fun, keeping tabs on a literal globe trotter. Plus, his tweets often displayed a celebratory quality about our world.

Okay, so my early annoyance turned out to be jealousy. Vaguely annoyed. That’s how I felt after months of following Andrew Evans on Twitter. When was this guy’s paid vacation going to end? Did he really think he could infect me with his exuberance for world travel? Who was funding him? Annoying! The only reason I followed Andrew was Twitter told me to. That and it seemed a little fun, keeping tabs on a literal globe trotter. Plus, his tweets often displayed a celebratory quality about our world.

Okay, so my early annoyance turned out to be jealousy. Years later, @WheresAndrew remains a Twitter account I recommend following. Even so, buying a copy of his new book The Black Penguin was not an immediate priority, but for one fact that eluded me until last week. I’d never realized Andrew Evans was raised Mormon.

Andrew and I have two critical things in common. We both served LDS Church missions, and we both eventually walked away from the Church. Being both a Twitter fan and a fellow “returned missionary” makes it near impossible for me to write a fully objective review of The Black Penguin. I was rooting for Andrew before I finished reading the preface. Still, this is not a book solely, or even mostly, about his journey out of Mormonism.

The Black Penguin recounts Andrew’s bus trip from Washington D.C. to Antarctica (including a short plane ride and a necessary transfer to a boat near the end). The book exhibits a binary structure. While Andrew proceeds southward by bus in the narrative present, his book flashes back to school years spent in Ohio and Utah, and his time in the Ukraine as a Mormon missionary. Yet, even with this time hopping, The Black Penguin displays a unifying sense of rising action and purpose.

Andrew’s epic bus trip eventually became an article for National Geographic Traveler, supplemented by blog posts and tweets from the road. Along the way the book detours further into his past to reveal an origin story fraught with bullying, religious judgement, and family crisis. All these ordeals were reactions to Andrew’s same-sex orientation. For Andrew, the science of geography became the art of escape.

By running past and present storylines in tandem, The Black Penguin offers engrossing parallels. For instance, the chapter about Andrew being found out at Brigham Young University connects to chapters about dangerous travel through Mexico and Central America. Both episodes exhibit the same sense of peril, fueled by powerful, sometimes unseen, forces that may decide his fate at any moment.

Yet, like his tweets, Andrew’s book also provides humor, beauty, and excitement. The personable, empathic prose creates a sensation of being in the seat next to him, staring out the bus window while passing near cliffs, through jungles, and along coastlines. And while the book is ultimately about Andrew’s quest, it teams with lively stories about people he meets along the way—quite like an issue of National Geographic.

Page after page, I experienced a keen sense of us all being on a globe, feeling the pace of its spin, gaining greater awareness of our relationship to each other and Earth. I highly recommend The Black Penguin. It’s a trip we all should experience. ...more

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Apr 07, 2019 Brad Turner rated it it was amazing

This is one of my favorite travelogues. Evans weaves anecdotes from his bus trip from D.C. to Patagonia plus boat trip to Antarctica with memoir-style reflections growing up gay in the Church Of Latter Day Saints. Both parts are are curious, well written; , amusing, revelatory.

Evans practices really refreshing travel writing. He is imperfect like us. He feels joy, awe, and reverence. He has adventures like being on a bus in Colombia that hits a cow and a bus in Bolivia that gets stuck in mud. H ...more

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Sep 22, 2017 David rated it it was amazing

Shelves: faith-transitions

Travel writer and National Geographic correspondent Andrew Evans has written a wonderful book about his 45 day trip, by bus (!), from Washington D.C. to Antartica. I heard him on NPR and noted that he was raised Mormon, as I was, so it caught my attention and after listening to his interview, I wanted to read the book. What I discovered is a heartwarming, and sometimes heart wrenching personal story, not only about his trek across two American continents but about his life and personal struggles ...more

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Dec 24, 2017 Mikekpdx rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Magnificent storytelling

I know Andrew Evans personally, but that fact alone does not carry with it a requirement to positively review this book. This book stands on its own merit easily. The greater portion of the story, of traveling by bus from one end of the world to the other, is fascinating and engrossing before a turn to exhilarating. I learned much about travel and geography, especially through Central and South America and Antarctica. The coming out portions of the book are intimate and p ...more

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Jul 27, 2017 Michael Nielsen rated it it was amazing

As a child, Andrew Evans loved geography. As an adult, he traveled the world, eventually going by bus from Washington DC to the southern-most tip of South American, and then to antarctica by ship. Along the way we learn of his encounters with people, his experiences in different places, and the past that shaped him. Once in antarctica he photographs a very rare black penguin. Read this book and travel along with Andrew. You'll be glad you did. ...more

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Aug 02, 2017 Pamela rated it liked it

Shelves: lgbt, library, travel, memoir-bio

Was following Andrew & his hike across Jordan & thus found out about his book "The Black Penguin." I looked forward to reading it, and I enjoyed the story of his life and his relationship with his family and how he grew along his path... I am hoping he does a book (or film!?) about his hike across Jordan. ...more

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Nov 21, 2017 Natalie Cardon rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: autobiography, memoir, biography, travel, nonfiction, lgbt

Fantastic

I loved vicariously reliving Andrew’s adventures. Funny, suspenseful, and moving! The writing is beautiful and authentic. I also loved reading about Andrew’s experiences growing up with the trial of being gay and Mormon. Reading, just like traveling changes & broadens your perspective. I’m glad to have had the pleasure of that with this book.

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Sep 13, 2018 Joseph rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Great Adventure Story

I thoroughly enjoyed this magnificent travel adventure. The book was very well written and I appreciated the dude story of a young gay man dealing with his sexuality. I am also a gay man and the struggles the author described were identical to my own. I'm so happy I bought the book. I intend on reading it again.
...more

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Jan 06, 2019 Jill rated it it was amazing

Shelves: bacon-number-1, travel-narratives

I’ve been saving this book and today was the day. I read it in one sitting and couldn’t put it down. Andrew Evans is so observant, so honest, and so fearless that my admiration for him —- already high —- has just magnified itself a zillion times. This is a poignant memoir of a born traveller and gifted storyteller. Highly recommend it.

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Jan 22, 2019 Jona rated it did not like it

Oh boy. I abandoned this at pg 106. I cannot deal with his privileged, judgemental and casually racist ramblings. As a queer woman dedicated to improving the lives of cis and trans POC folks in my community and constantly working to dismantle my own privilege, I find white cis gay men like Mr. Evans the most egregious and won't waste my time finishing this book. ...more

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May 26, 2019 Sam Wolfe rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

As a fellow explorer, I appreciated this chance to join my friend, Andrew, via his generous storytelling along an ambitious route all the way south. Stories, like Andrew's, of discovery and transcendence of unaccepting religious traditions are of tremendous value. His voice and humor shine through the pages as a favored travel companion. ...more

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Aug 16, 2019 Andrew rated it it was amazing

Shelves: summer-reading-2019

This is probably the best travelogue I’ve ever read. But, more than that, I came close to tears seeing myself in Andrew Evans as a lonely gay kid who found refuge in the pages of the encyclopedia and National Geographic magazine. I loved reading about Andrew’s adventures, his struggles with family and church, and his seemingly endless capacity to meet the world with love.

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Mar 21, 2020 Jacquie rated it really liked it

Shelves: nature-general, memoirs, birds, fauna, ornithology, social-commentary, travel

For my fellow science nonfiction lovers, this book does focus much more on Andrew's journey, both literally and figuratively, than on the natural history aspects of the Antarctic and the sights along the way. In terms of a travel memoir it is interesting, though like Andrew himself you tend to long for him to linger slightly in the places he stops through. Worthwhile. ...more

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Aug 06, 2017 Kevin rated it really liked it

Shelves: gay, non-fiction

Does what good travel writing is supposed to do: inspires you to travel and to write. But the book is more than just a travelogue of Evans's bus trip from D.C. to Tierra del Fuego, it's also part memoir and part meditation on why we travel. ...more

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Jun 08, 2018 Dustin rated it it was amazing

Andrew does a great of job of weaving his past experiences that were crucial to shaping his desire to reach Antarctica -- and makes a compelling case for the inevitable insights and personal changes that happen along the way to chasing a dream.

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Oct 17, 2020 Neera rated it really liked it

Enjoyed this quirky adventure of a national geographic author's journey through the Americas by bus to reach the South Pole. The flashbacks to coming of age tales of a young, gay Mormon were also relatable. ...more

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Aug 06, 2017 Wendy Taylor rated it it was amazing

Part travelogue, part social commentary. Fascinating read.

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Apr 20, 2019 Ben rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

A great read full of interesting travel stories and a beautiful memoir of his life growing up gay and Mormon. The two stories are interwoven beautifully.

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Jun 24, 2019 Toby Murphy rated it really liked it

Loved this book! Great memoir and great travel writing. At times, the two two could’ve worked together a bit better but a great read.

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Feb 02, 2020 Grace Hoffmann rated it really liked it

I read it almost all on a XC flight -- fun read. Just the right amount of gay angst combined with National Geographic obsession.

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Nov 08, 2020 Peter rated it liked it

He just left Marvin passed out in that truck?

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Sep 07, 2018 DFZ rated it did not like it

While parts of this narrative were incredibly engaging and well-written, how can I in good conscience say he’s a good writer or that this is a good book when he says things like he wanted to go native or that all Argentinians are thieves or the countless paragraphs documenting two dimensional benevolent or malevolent brown people?

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