Monkeys in the Rain

Donna Carrere

This is an oddball memoir of a trip gone wildly awry. Carrère, husband and daughter, living in Paris, decide one winter to visit Greece. Rain and miserable weather lead them to want a visit to a warm climate, so they pack their grip and wing their way to Bangkok (thus the reason for making it in the luggage this trip). While there, the hubby suffers an apparent heart attack.

What follows is the ordeal of brutal heat (as I write this on Friday I don't know what the temperature is outside - and I don't really want to, either), described as 512 degrees, the logistics of extending visas in an area not known for willingness to extend them, and a trip to a seaside resort where the recovery can continue for a couple weeks. Although this is a fast paced book, I found the author to be a bit shrill, and she never seemed to find anything she liked - at least not that she wrote about. Whether that was a by-product of the trip to hell, or whether it is her 'norm', isn't clear, but I'm not certain I would read another of hers to find out.