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Sex, travel and philosophy

Whistler author contemplates the burden of choice in his first novel When someone hands you a book, the usual question is "what’s it about?" Most often the usual response is a rambling summation of the plot, the characters, and, where

Whistler author contemplates the burden of choice in his first novel

When someone hands you a book, the usual question is "what’s it about?" Most often the usual response is a rambling summation of the plot, the characters, and, where applicable, the point of the book.

Whistler author Mitch Rhodes, when handing over a copy of his first novel, The Worldwide Sexual Adventures of Walker Fayt, has an unusual answer ready for the usual question: "It’s a book about sex, travel and philosophy."

The idea came to him, naturally, while he was lying in bed one morning and pondering the concept of choice – how our split-second decisions and gut-reactions are predetermined by the lives we did or did not choose. By not following our instincts, we often close the door on opportunities and experiences that will make us happy, healthy and whole.

He came up with the title first, then the opening line – "There is no truth; there is only what we believe" – and worked backwards from there.

That was four and a half years ago. Over the next few years, he filled in the plot line piece by piece, with whatever spare time his career as a financial officer for a Toronto company afforded him. When he moved to Whistler with his wife in June of 1998, he jumped into it with both feet. Within a year he had a first draft.

"It was definitely a learning process for me," says Rhodes. "Even though I started with an outline, every day I had to sit down with nothing in front of me and try to create experiences and psychological insight, and put them down in concrete form."

Little by little, the worldwide sexual adventures of Walker Fayt unravelled.

The novel begins with a naïve but determined Walker on an airplane to Amsterdam, contemplating the vision that prompted him to leave his wife, his grown-up daughters and life as a high school history teacher in Appleton, Wisconsin, to travel the world seeking sexual experiences: "Death can occur at any time. So at any given moment you must live your life with no regrets and with no skeletons in the closet." In other words, if you’re not happy within yourself, you can’t possibly expect to bring happiness to those around you.

Like many people of his generation, Walker went to church and married the same high school sweetheart he lost his virginity to. While his wife was certain that this journey is just a symptom of a mid-life crisis, Walker knows that the crisis was over the moment he had a vision – once you are honest with yourself, there’s no turning back. At least that’s what he believes.

Over the next 18 chapters, Walker travels to Amsterdam, England, Sweden, France, Uganda, Egypt, Jordan, Thailand, Cambodia, Australia and Canada – where Walker takes his daughter skiing in Whistler while on a break from university.

On his journey he flirts with countless women and winds up in some form of coitus with about 16 of them – not that he’s counting.

"I was careful not to give Walker a macho attitude," says Rhodes. "Most of my female readers have told me they see Walker as a caring person. Although he does have sex with all these different women, it’s never in a macho or mean-spirited way. He’s pretty wide-eyed and backward, at least at the beginning."

The storytelling can be graphic at times, "But men are basically visual and graphic in nature – they need to see what’s going on."

That covers the sex and the travel, and all of the action and adventure in between. The philosophy is something that develops over the course of the novel, as Walker sorts through the various revelations that come to him through the course of his six-month journey. One of his final revelations captures the essence of choice nicely – "The only event in the universe that I can control is how I choose to feel or react to situations that govern me… when I’m successful in selecting positive thoughts, feelings and reactions, the universe changes for the better."

When he arrives home, prematurely due to a family emergency, he discovers that his wife has moved on, one of his daughters despises him, and his other daughter has serious doubts. He uses his revelations to stay positive through the experience, helping others, and even manages to bridge a few gaps in the process.

The story doesn’t end with a happily ever after because the story isn’t really over, says Rhodes.

"Although this is a travel book, and people think a journey should have a beginning and an end, human beings are a work in progress, there’s never a finality to it. A perfect ending would have been wrong for this story, as long as Walker was happy."

Although Rhodes had been to many of the places in the story, he hadn’t been to all of them. It’s not an autobiographical story, either. Where his own experiences fell short Rhodes filled the gaps with research and the testimonials of others – "For the sex stories, guys are a great resource. If you get a group of guys together with a beer in a locker room, you’d be amazed at what you hear."

Rhodes used at least a dozen books, excluding travel books, to research the various themes is in his story. Even his well-travelled editor couldn’t tell which countries Rhodes had actually been to in his own travels and which countries he only read about. For the writing, he credits many authors for their influence, including Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Anne Rice and Salman Rushdie in the fiction department, and Deepak Chopra, Joseph Chilton Pearce and Steven Hawking in the non-fiction department.

After learning all he could about sex, travel and philosophy and disseminating that information into a book, Rhodes had to learn all about the business of publishing, such as how hard it is to break into the publishing business.

"It seems that there are too many steps between the author and the reader going the conventional route," says Rhodes. Rather than jump through hoops for the next few years, Rhodes found a small publisher in Creative Connections Publishing who made it happen. Although it got the book into print faster, as a small publisher Creative Connections did not have the distribution network of other publishing houses to fall back on.

"Flogging" the book meant approaching independent book stores, and meetings with larger distributors. He missed the buying date for Chapters, but managed to get his novel onto Amazon.com. It’s currently selling in seven bookstores in Vancouver, a handful of stores in Toronto, and in most Whistler retailers. Bookstores in Seattle have also agreed to carry the book, and slowly but surely, Rhodes is starting to sell books. "Which, as a first time author, is just an amazing experience."