Journey to Bom Goody

by

Karen Heuler

Karen Heuler’s new novel, Journey to Bom Goody, takes us to the Amazon River where a retired electronics store owner conducts a “social experiment” by delivering VCR’s and portable electric generators to increasingly isolated natives along the riverbank. The fantastical results are as telling about America’s Entertainment-Tonight civilization as they are about native South Americans.

ISBN, trade paper: 978-1-931982-54-2 price: ($14.95)

ISBN, library edition:978-1-931982-53-5 price: ($25.00)

Excerpt from the book:

    The boat looked like something out of African Queen, even though it was on the wrong river. It was small and battered and doomed to a bad end.        
     Nevertheless it chugged on, with its sole passenger, a Mr. Forbes, and his mysterious cargo.
    Mr. Forbes was dressed in a beige polyester suit and a Panama hat, and he sat in the rear of the boat among his wealth of crates and boxes, looking at the trees, at the water, at the canoes they passed, with silent, meditative vigilance. He was bony and white-haired and he moved as if he had to conserve himself.
    “What do you suppose he’s doing, Joachim?” the owner of the boat asked his son, who shrugged elaborately. “He’s American. Maybe a vacation. Something to do with a vacation. With Americans, it’s always vacation.”
    The owner nodded wisely. “And those boxes must be machines, maybe air conditioning. But me, I like this heat.”
    Joachim shrugged again, and then bent down to get a bottle of warm Coca-Cola. He studied Forbes as he sipped it.
    The gringo looked hungrily at the trees, as if they might fatten him up, Joachim thought, but then his gaze would slip and he’d end up looking at his hands. His hands were empty.
    “If it’s air conditioning,” his father continued, “he’s crazy. He may be crazy anyway, they often are. But why would he bring air conditioning to Lago Vendrida? It’s primitive there, not even one electric light. Unless they’re building something.”