For those who think that travel guidebooks are the gospel truth.

Wanted: Travel Writer for Brazil

Qualifications Required:

Decisiveness: the ability to desert your entire previous life - including a well-salaried office job, attractive girlfriend, and basic sanity for less than minimum wage.

Attention to detail: The skill to research northeastern Brazil, including transportation, restaurants, hotels, culture, customs, and language, while juggling sleep deprivation, nonstop nightlife, and excessive alcohol consumption

Creativity: The imagination to write about places you never actually visit

Resourcefulness: Utilizing persuasion, seduction, and threats, when necessary, to secure a place to stay for the evening once your pitiable advance has been (mis)spent

Resilience: determination to overcome setbacks such as bankruptcy, disillusionment, and an ill-fated one-night stand with an Austrian flight attendant

As Kohnstamm comes to personal terms with each of these job requirements, he unveils the underside of the travel industry and its often-harrowing effect on writers, travelers, and the destinations themselves. Moreover, he invites us into his world of compromising and scandalous situations in one of the most exciting countries as he races against an impossible deadline.