Honeymoon with My Brother

Wisner, Franz. Honeymoon with My Brother: A Memoir. New York: St. Martin's Press. 2009. Print

First Sentences:

Amid the pine tree windbreaks and foamy Pacific shore, Sea Ranch, California, is a wonderful place to be dumped.

The wild lilac and ill-tempered sea lions -- they'll distract your attention for at least a few minutes after the woman of your dreams leaves you at the altar. That, and a hell of a lot of booze.

Description:

What do you do when, just days before your are to be married, the woman on your dreams calls off your elaborate wedding? Well, if you are Franz Wisner and his support team of friends and family, you have a party anyway at the wedding location and then go on the pre-paid honeymoon trip - with your brother. The details of this true, funny experience of travel and re-connection are wonderfully recorded in Honeymoon with My Brother: A Memoir.

Author Wisner, (aka "Wiz") is at first devastated by the break up with fiance Annie, but when best friends call the wedding guests to have them come anyways to the San Francisco resort by the sea, the party is on. Also, there's a spur-of-the-moment ridiculous ceremony between Wiz and his elementary friend John. 

Five days later, after a demotion from his high-power job, Wiz contacts his free spirit brother Kurt and convinces him to take the first-class honeymoon trip with him They are two dissimilar brothers, distant and unfamiliar with each other. But somehow they come to understand (or at least tolerate) each other throughout the ensuing two-week journey to Costa Rica.

I had no idea how we'd travel together, but got a glimpse before we left LAX on the overnight flight to San Jose. 

"Come on, Franz, let's go scam our way into the United Airlines lounge," he ordered as we waited for the flight.

During that trip, they reevaluate their lives and decide they need a radical change. So they quit their jobs, sell all their possessions including their houses to undertake another trip together. This one, mostly unscheduled and without guidebooks, lasts two years and covers 53 countries in Europe, Asia, Africa, and South America.

We agreed that prepaid hotel reservations and prearranged tours limited our flexibility. Vacations, like life, needed room for improvisation. No more, we swore.

Honeymoon with My Brother is a story of relationships, disappointments, travel, and the reemergence of the human spirit for Wiz and brother Kurt. Faced with the challenges of lost passports, foreign lands and people, these brothers reconnect with people through conversations, recommendations for food and sites, and thoughts of love and life.

Wisner's style is casual, but thorough, as he records their details and conversations during their wandering adventures around the world. The "unexpected" in people and experiences become the norm for them as they begin to embrace the unknown with open arms and eyes.

A thoroughly delightful, humorous, and thoughtful book with characters you want to follow forever. Fortunately, there is a second book of Wisner's later travels, How the World Makes Love ... And What It Taught a Jilted Groom, where Franz travels the world searching for the meaning of love to the people of different cultures. Can he ever recover from his broken wedding and find love again? You'll just have to keep reading.

Happy reading. 

Fred

www.firstsentencereader.blogspot.com

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Wisner, Franz. How the World Makes Love ... And What It Taught a Jilted Groom  

Continued travels with Franz as he talks with people worldwide to understand what love means to them and how he can recover from his shattered love life.