Set on the lush tropical island of Sumatra, Jalan Jalan is the story of one man's attempt to escape from himself and the memory of his dead girlfriend. On the first page our narrator arrives in Indonesia, having taken a job in a ragtag language school where his fellow teachers are all misfits seemingly on the run from the realities of life in their home countries. "What sort of idiot takes a job after a five minute phone interview, in a country he knows nothing much about and on the other side of the world, in a school he's never heard of? Me idiot. That's who!" says the disaffected Newbie--a nickname given to him by his colleagues.
This story of a quest for salvation in an exotic foreign land will appeal to fans of Alex Garland's The Beach, Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love and Malcolm Lowry's Under the Volcano. The title of the book comes from the Indonesian phrase jalan jalan ("walk walk") which one of the characters describes as: "Just fu$&ing walking man. Out for a stroll." To Newbie, whose real name is never revealed until the book's final page, the phrase aptly sums up the emotional detachment he seeks. Yet despite himself, he cannot help being transformed by his new experiences.
