The Promised Land: Travels in Search of the Perfect E

by Decca Aitkenhead (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  2003

  $12.43

  Classic travel quest - the pursuit of happiness - explored by a brilliant writer seeking to rediscover the idyllic moment of her student years, its carefree rhapsodies and perfect pleasures. In the spirit of Alex Garland's 'The Beach', Decca Aitkenhead travels round the world in search of the perfect E and the perfect clubbing experience, ten years after her first clubbing days in Manchester. That quest for a clubland myth: the pill to top them all. Her journey links downtown Detroit with the townships of Cape Town, beatnik San Francisco with Thailand's beach parties. While searching for the perfect pill, unintended encounters with dubious characters sometimes reveal she has travelled far from transcendence. While in Cape Town she meets the most notorious South African gangster and finds herself staring down the barrel of a gun in the hands of a dealer who is neither sober nor sane. Tinged with nostalgia, this is the perfect book for anyone who loves or has loved the clubbing experience. All the way round the world, Decca carried a record bag so that when she found the perfect pill she could play the perfect tune.

• Used

  Paperback
  2002

  $3.99

  Classic travel quest - the pursuit of happiness - explored by a brilliant writer seeking to rediscover the idyllic moment of her student years, its carefree rhapsodies and perfect pleasures. Decca Aitkenhead was a student at Manchester University in the early 1990s at the birth of Manchester Cool, the club scene, the easy mix of music and sexuality and Ecstasy. Ten years on she wanted to see where that had gone, where clubbing had moved to and whether, years after The Beach had not merely been discovered, written about and filmed, happiness was still to be found. Pursuing a classic traveller's purpose - the search to rediscover a perfect moment of bliss - she set out on a thoroughly contemporary journey that linked downtown Detroit with the townships outside Cape Town, beatnik San Francisco with Thailand's New Moon Rave. Her journey in search of the great transcendent moment - the perfect E - is, in turns, touching and comic, full of unintended encounters with trippers of all kind and spiked with genuine drama. When she finds herself staring down the barrel of a pistol in the hands of a dealer who is neither sober nor sane, she recognizes that she has travelled a very long way from transcendence indeed. The success of her quest is both sudden and unexpected and fleeting - a testament to her resilience and good-natured endurance. And it comes oddly close to home - a traveller's irony. In the tradition of all noble adventurers, she remains faithful to the idea that happiness is out there to be rediscovered.