The Way Around - by David Good (Paperback)

About the Book

Rooted in two vastly different cultures, a young man struggles to understand himself, find his place in the world, and reconnect with his mother and her remote tribe in the deepest jungles of the Amazon rainforest in this powerful memoir that combines adventure, history, and anthropology.

My Yanomami family called me by name. Anyopo-we. What it means, I soon learned, is long way around: I d taken the long way around obstacles to be here among my people, back where I started. A twenty-year detour.

For much of his young life, David Good was torn between two vastly different worlds. The son of an American anthropologist and a tribeswoman from a distant part of the Amazon, it took him twenty years to embrace his identity, reunite with the mother who left him when he was six, and claim his heritage.

The Way Around is Good s amazing chronicle of self-discovery. Moving from the wilds of the Amazonian jungle to the paved confines of suburban New Jersey and back, it is the story of his parents, his American scientist-father and his mother who could not fully adapt to the Western lifestyle. Good writes sympathetically about his mother s abandonment and the deleterious effect it had on his young self; of his rebellious teenage years marked by depression and drinking, and the near-fatal car accident that transformed him and gave him purpose to find a way back to his mother.

A compelling tale of recovery and discovery, The Way Around is a poignant, fascinating exploration of what family really means, and the way that the strongest bonds endure, even across decades and worlds."

Book Synopsis

Rooted in two vastly different cultures, a young man struggles to understand himself, find his place in the world, and reconnect with his mother--and her remote tribe in the deepest jungles of the Amazon rainforest--in this powerful memoir that combines adventure, history, and anthropology.

"My Yanomami family called me by name. Anyopo-we. What it means, I soon learned, is 'long way around' I'd taken the long way around obstacles to be here among my people, back where I started. A twenty-year detour."

For much of his young life, David Good was torn between two vastly different worlds. The son of an American anthropologist and a tribeswoman from a distant part of the Amazon, it took him twenty years to embrace his identity, reunite with the mother who left him when he was six, and claim his heritage.

The Way Around is Good's amazing chronicle of self-discovery. Moving from the wilds of the Amazonian jungle to the paved confines of suburban New Jersey and back, it is the story of his parents, his American scientist-father and his mother who could not fully adapt to the Western lifestyle. Good writes sympathetically about his mother's abandonment and the deleterious effect it had on his young self; of his rebellious teenage years marked by depression and drinking, and the near-fatal car accident that transformed him and gave him purpose to find a way back to his mother.

A compelling tale of recovery and discovery, The Way Around is a poignant, fascinating exploration of what family really means, and the way that the strongest bonds endure, even across decades and worlds.

From the Back Cover

From the wilds of the Amazonian jungle to the paved confines of suburban New Jersey and back, The Way Around is David Good's amazing chronicle of self-discovery. It is also the story of his parents, as he relives his American anthropologist father's journey encountering the world of his mother, a Yanomami from a distant part of the Amazon, and his mother's painful struggle to adapt to a Western lifestyle. In this powerful memoir, David illuminates the pain of his mother's abandonment when he was only six, and the toll it took on his childhood; the rebellious teenage years marked by depression and drinking; and the near-fatal car accident that gave him purpose: to find a way back to his mother.

A tale of recovery and discovery combining adventure, history, and science, The Way Around is a fascinating exploration of what family really means, and the way that the strongest bonds endure across decades and worlds.

Review Quotes

"A remarkable and moving adventure, the compelling story of a baseball-playing American boy who finds his way from a troubled childhood in the suburbs to the remotest redoubts of the Amazon in search of his Yanomami mother." - Carl Hoffman, author of Savage Harvest