Spiritland by Nava Renek
ISBN 1-881471-57-8   $13.00 US  |  $18.00 CAN    230 pages


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Spiritland follows the journey of Maddy Foster as she travels through the fringe world of backpackers,
drug dealers, Vietnam Vets, and other ex-pats living in Thailand. During Maddy’s first week in Bangkok,
she discovers a notice on a traveler’s bulletin board where parents are seeking information about their
missing daughter. From that moment on, Maddy embarks on her own informal search for this fellow
American woman, meanwhile losing herself in the quest. Throughout her journey, Maddy chooses to
surround herself with other lost souls whose stories are interwoven with her own and may explain the
choices the characters make and the  factors that have gotten them into their unusual, and sometimes
desperate, circumstances. Maddy’s deteriorating state of mind and escalating drug use lead to a succession
of bad decisions, bringing her closer to her own destruction.

Nava Renek's Spiritland moves with all the intensity and subtlety of an Asian tiger—it is at once both
beautiful and powerful. Her character Maddy Foster wavers in a modern-day purgatory between the ancient
and the addicted, ancestral spirits and the spiritually lost. Her exquisite descent into hell is recorded with
such a poetic realism it reads as if Dante himself had updated Let's Go Thailand 2002.    Arthur Nersesian, author of The Fuck-Up

Spiritland is beautifully written, original, compelling, spare and dark. I read it in one sitting; I couldn't
put it down, and when I'd finished it I felt as if I'd been on an exotic, risky, strange trip myself.     Kate Christensen, author of In The Drink



Nava Renek

Nava Renek has traveled extensively in Europe, Southeast Asia,
Mexico and the United States, and lived in various parts of the world
including Singapore, London, and San Francisco. She received her MFA from
Brooklyn College where she works as a program developer and grant writer.