Hard Travel to Sacred Places is the record of a personal odyssey through Southeast Asia, an external and internal journey through grief and the painful realities of a decadent age. Wurlitzer—novelist, screenwriter, and Buddhist practitioner—travels with his wife, photographer Lynn Davis, on a photo assignment to the sacred sites of Thailand, Burma, and Cambodia. Heavy Westernization, sex clubs, aging hippies and expatriates, and political dissidents provide a vivid contrast to the peace that Wurlitzer and Davis seek, still reeling from the death of their son in a car accident. As Davis with her camera searches for a thread of meaning among the artifacts and relics of a more enlightened age, Wurlitzer grasps at the wisdom of the Buddhist teachings in an effort to assuage his grief. His journal chronicles the survival of age-old truths in a world gone mad.
On a journey through Southeast Asia, a writer discovers the survival of age-old truths in a world gone mad.
"A brilliant corrective to euphemistic travel writing and a profound look at the spiritual life under duress... Wurlitzer sets a new standard of truth for the widening crowd of those who would write about the spiritual life." - San Francisco Chronicle
"A dark jewel, sharp and compact...what a rare thing Wurlitzer has written: a book of spirit that cuts to the bone." - Voice Literary Supplement "Favorite 25 books of 1994"
