Penis Gourds Wilts On Its Promise

Penis Gourds and Moscow Muggings by Glen Allison

Not long ago, several friends and I were talking about why so many stand-up comedians and would-be improv actors fail. They are so funny with their friends, that someone tells them they should do stand-up. Unfortunately, the skills needed to entertain strangers are different than the skills needed to entertain one's friends.

It isn't that different with would-be writers. Someone who can tell a good or unusual story is often told, "You should write a book." But if they haven't the writing skills to tell their story to an unseen group of strangers, well, they probably shouldn't. Or they should hire someone else to write their stories for them.

Thus is the case with this small, colorful book with a promising title, Penis Gourds and Moscow Muggings. The title is very nearly the best thing the book has going for it.

Well, OK, it also has good photographs in the center of the book. Excellent ones, in fact. Had Glen Allison, the author of Penis Gourds--someone who repeatedly identifies himself as a photographer,--played to his strengths and made this a photo book, this review would have several more stars. He could have included more pictures and tightly edited blurbs that gave the highlights and most unusual moments of his travel.

Instead, the book has only a few photos stuck in the middle, sandwiched between text that reads more like a travel blog than anything carefully prepared for public consumption. The text is too disjointed to be a narrative and there isn't enough detail for it to be a travel guide.

The text is entirely focused on the author and his reactions to the events in his travels, not on the places he is visiting. Even the people whom he describes are described less for who they are and more for how the author reacts to them.

There were moments when I thought the book would deliver on its promise. First, Allison writes in a very conversational, light-hearted manner. Each chapter makes for a very quick read. In more than one chapter, I found myself getting engrossed and caught up in the suspense he constantly built. But he never delivered and I found myself rolling my eyes what I felt were his attempts at trickery.

And let's not even talk about his obsession with penis gourds and their sizes, shall we?

Allison is an excellent photographer. I truly wish he'd tried to create a tabletop photography book and let someone else write up his travels for him--someone who could have pumped him for the details that are missing in this book, someone who would have been a step away from Allison's ego and able to better recognize what would be of interest to the reader and what wouldn't be.

The book has promise, but since it doesn't deliver, I'd advise steering clear.