A Trance After Breakfast: And Other Passages

by Alan Cheuse

A collection of lyrical travel writings from celebrated writer and NPR commentator Alan Cheuse. Along with luggage and tickets, we always travel with that which it is impossible to leave ourselves, our spirits, our souls. By definition the best travel writing carries us on a soul-journey, the sort of trip that dramatizes how the heart learns about its place in the world. In A Trance After Breakfast, poetic wanderer and novelist (To Catch the Lightning) Alan Cheuse has crafted a collection that masterfully exceeds such standards. He lures the reader around the world, from Bali and New Zealand to Mexico and back home again to his native New Jersey, making the foreign familiar and the familiar slightly foreign. Collected from such celebrated publications as Gourmet, the Antioch Review, and the San Diego Reader, the dispatches in A Trance After Breakfast will enchant, captivate, and transport readers.

Genres: Essays, Nonfiction, Travel

247 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

American writer and critic.
For more than two decades, Alan Cheuse has served as NPRs voice of books. He is the author of three novels, including The Grandmothers Club and The Light Possessed, several collections of short stories, and a pair of novellas recently published in The Fires. He is also the editor of Seeing Ourselves: Great Early American Short Stories and co-editor of Writers Workshop in a Book. Stories and co-editor of Writers Workshop in a Book."
Forthcoming in March, 2015, the novel
Prayers for the Living...
Born in Perth Amboy, New Jersey, Cheuse grew up in a Jewish family, the son of a Russian immigrant father and a mother of Russian and Romanian descent

Reviews

[Katy · Rating 3 out of 5]

tbh i'm not entirely sure why i added this to my reading list! i was sifting through a backlog of my "to read" shelf and this one made the cut.

beautifully written travel vignettes and ponderings. especially loved the time spent in a bi-lingual school in mexico.

i liked it well enough, but still can't for the life of me remember why or how i came across it.

[Professor · Rating 2 out of 5]

A rather uneven collection of essays, theoretically about travel, but really about the author and his life, life on the Tijuana/San Diego border, and about ocean travel and immigration. The best essays, I found, were the ones that focused on the border and immigration. The travel ones tried a bit too hard to tie in with spirituality in my book. I won my copy at a professional development event, and I was not disappointed to read it, but unless you too win a copy or are an Alan Cheuse fan you can skip it.

[Cyndi · Rating 5 out of 5]

I went to hear the author at a local book store. I'm a fan of his reviews on NPR. I wasn't sure I would like this book. I love to travel, but don't really enjoy reading about it. However, after listening to the author I was hooked. He read the chapter on Bali, a place I've never had much interest in, and had to read the book. His section on New Zealand, a place I have been to, was wonderful.

[Meg · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not my style, found his writing too flowery and serious, but might appeal to others.

[Jim Witkins · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyed a couple of the stories. abiquiu...