Writing a memoir as one's first book is one of the most arrogant things an author can do. The entire enterprise takes it as axiomatic that the world gives enough of a damn about someone with no previous achievements that their life story should somehow be worth reading. And what's even more arrogant is when said author announces this book's release by reviewing it himself.
So, without further ado, here's me being arrogant. 😂
"There are people in this world who refuse to play unless they know the deck is stacked against them. It took me nearly forty years and multiple trips around the world to realize I'm one of them.
And as cheesy as that hook is, I'm going to start with it because frankly I'm just not sure where to begin a memoir."
Well, there's something to be said for an author's ability to laugh at himself, and Harris establishes not only this trait but indeed what seems to be the most defining aspect of his personality in the very first two lines of this memoir. This book does indeed start off as exactly what it seems to be from the cover - the biography of a young, rather dumb American going abroad for the first time and finding himself hopelessly out of his depth. Readers from outside the US will indeed find themselves asking "Good Lord, are Americans really this stupid?" more than once within the first few chapters.
However, it doesn't stay that way.
Expat Shenanigans
After a brief prologue giving a bit of backstory on the author and detailing why he decided to go abroad in the first place (a woman is involved), the first chapter finds him on a TEFL internship in Beijing in August of 2012 surrounded by British interns including a fiesty redhead who becomes an important part of the first half (though not a romantic interest). From there it follows him as he is dropped into the middle of Southern China without a clue what he is getting into, and it is likely no surprise that much of the action in the first few chapters takes place in bars.
Through most of the first few chapters, the author's mindset seems to be "where the Hell am I and what the Hell is going on?" Think of Jack Burton with a Master's Degree. After two chapters describing the shock of getting accustomed to China, the author finds himself quickly back in America, but only briefly.
Getting Serious
Around the fourth chapter, after briefly introducing a cast of miscreants who will pop in and out of the story, the tone changes to one of "let's get down to business" and establishes himself as a professional teacher with a track record of getting results. In truth, this chapter covers so much time in so few pages that it probably should have been a book of its own (it covers four and a half years of teaching and never once depicts the inside of a classroom or mentions any of the author's students), but despite its frenzied pacing this chapter marks the author's transition from "fresh-off-the-plane-moron" to "seasoned expat," a transition which becomes important later on in Chapter 6.
Meanwhile, there are two romantic sub-plots in a row, both of which end badly, though that does not stop the author from picking himself up and establishing himself as the owner of a school.
A Tragic Ending
By the final chapter the author has left China and is in Ukraine, and considering that the previous chapter ends with New Year's Day of 2022, it's not hard to predict that this chapter takes a truly dark turn, quite quickly. It is a wake-up call for the author in a manner so painful that it should probably include kleenexes.
This chapter does a semi-reasonable job of tying up threads from previous chapters and nearly every major character in the book reappears, albeit briefly. In its second half the author (who is coping with depressions and showing signs of PTSD) reflects on his travels and begins to wonder "what was the point?" This leads to a conversation with a character from the beginning of the memoir who delivers a revelatory moment to the him before he finally makes a fateful decision: after ten years abroad, where will he go next - the homeland where he was never able to build a decent life, or the nation that destroyed the only life he ever knew?
Who Should Read It?
Well, Americans. Both the Woke-Left and the Pro-Russia-Right will find a bucket of cold water thrown onto everything they think is true (the former at the beginning of chapter 6 and the latter at the beginning of chapter 9), and the book is not subtle about challenging a lot of the self-aggrandizing views Americans hold dear. However, he does this without unduly praising either of America's leading rivals, China and Russia, who both get their self-image raked over the coals as well. Essentially, it feels like it ends with a toast saying "here's to America: the shiniest turd in the litterbox of Great Powers."
