Man Mission
By Eytan Uliel
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Four blokes take a
week-long adventure trip – hiking, biking, or kayaking – each year, for fifteen
years, starting in their late 20s. In the course of their travels, they hitch a
ride with drug dealers in New Zealand, down kava shots on Fijian beaches, come
face-to-face with a roaring lion in South Africa, luxuriate in a resort
intended only for Vietnamese Communist officials, trek to Machu Picchu, and go
ice climbing in Iceland.
Along the way they
get married, start families, establish careers, and do all the stuff upright
men are supposed to do. But when the challenges of real life come into conflict
with the perfect lives they are supposed to be living, their friendship, and
the yearly Man Mission, become something much more than an annual getaway – a
source of stability, and a place to find redemption.
Part travel narrative
and part roman à clef, Man Mission follows four regular guys across fifteen
years, on an international, adventure-packed, humor-filled search for meaning
and purpose, in a world where the traditional rules of “being a man” are no
longer clear.
About the Author
Eytan Uliel is a
storyteller, wanderer, global traveler, and seriously committed gourmand. After
graduating from the University of New South Wales in Sydney Australia, he
practiced corporate law for several years, before moving on to a career in
investment banking, private equity, and oil and gas finance.
An extensive work
travel schedule has taken Eytan to every corner of the globe – over 70
countries, and counting. His successful blog – The Road Warrior (www.eytanuliel.com) – chronicles these
journeys through a series of short stories and essays, some of which have been
republished in various magazines and newspapers. Man Mission is his debut
novel.
Eytan was born in Jerusalem, and has
lived in Australia, Singapore, the UK, The Bahamas, and the USA.
He currently splits his time between Los Angeles, The Bahamas and Sydney.
EXCERPT
I found the taste of the kava
bitter and grainy, like slurping sandy water. Although by the third round my
lips and tongue were tingling, the rest of my mouth was numb, and I was in a
remarkably mellow, relaxed mood. This was surprising, because I had been told
kava—the national drink and full-time obsession of Fiji—was non-alcoholic.
Still, everyone else seated
around the fire seemed to be in a similar, zoned-out frame of mind, so who was
I to argue. After all, the post-kava period of relaxation—talanoa in Fijian—was
supposedly the whole point of the ceremony, and as guests we were expected to
stick around, drink more kava, laugh, eat, dance, and shoot the breeze.
But as time wore on I was finding
it harder and harder to participate fully, much as I wanted to. My mouth began
refusing to work. An hour in and I couldn’t form complete sentences,
increasingly slurring my words and mumbling incoherently.
For their part, the chief of the
village and his cronies found my amateur response to the kava incredibly
amusing. Either that or even these seasoned veterans had got a bad case of the
giggles, thanks to the multiple rounds they’d drunk.
I closed my eyes for a long
moment, and when I opened them again, orange and purple bands of light were
streaked across the sky, and the last of the campfire embers glowed, a dull and
smoky red.
It was morning.
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