LIFE PLANS ON DIVE BAR NAPKINS

Manser presents an international travelogue in the form of a series of short stories.

The author, a Melbourne-based travel writer, offers a set of stories recounting his adventures (and misadventures) traveling around the world. Most of these stories involve his experiences in dive bars—drinking in them and sometimes getting thrown out of them. Each story is told in the form of a brief vignette (often without a clear-cut ending) featuring creative uses of various sizes of typefaces and accompanied by photographs and graphic illustrations. The narratives depict the adventures of a man who appears to be footloose and fancy free, with no responsibilities to tie him down—yet the concluding entry is about someone who is very much a family man, traveling to see his parents during the waning pandemic with his wife and baby son in tow. (“Bottom line, I guess you could say that the way I have travelled is not exactly kid friendly. Which is a little complicated given that I am now the co-owner of a 3-month-old boy called Alby. My partner, Jane, readjusts her facemask and tells me to stop standing around like an idiot, ‘Hurry up. We don’t want to be the last ones on the flight.’”) Manser’s travel stories take readers across the globe, from Palm Springs to Pamplona (for the running of the bulls) to Indonesia and back to Melbourne again. The book is a fun, engaging, and highly personal account—readers should be prepared for profanity and scatological references. That said, the author freely allows that his book will appeal to certain types of readers more than others (a refreshing admission). Essentially, Manser encourages readers to lighten up while finding time for moments for serious reflection on issues ranging from sexuality to the continued troubles of Argentina—the message and the appealing voice delivering it make for a satisfying read.

A sometimes disjointed but ultimately compelling set of travel anecdotes.