Review of The Year of Living Stupidly: Boom Bust and Cambodia by James Eckardt

The title is not a lie: the guy writing the book frequently drinks to excess, smokes (and not just the cigarettes made by the major tobacco companies), has bad companions, and frequently gets into trouble because of the above. And speaking of trouble, his marriage and family life can be fractious, too, especially when his vices and bad companions result in situations that upset his wife. All this is set within a larger dynamic of political and social trouble on which he reports, the financially risky life of a sometimes-freelance journalist, and the actual physical dangers which come from living and being working press in that part of the world during the 1980s and 1990s as history was being made in Cambodia, the financial system was collapsing in Thailand, and the small-time writer saw his income opportunities become less dependable and more hazardous (hence the period of time reporting and living hand-to-mouth in Cambodia while his family remained in relatively stable digs in Thailand).

Though he has often ended up living in a place called the Peachy Flophouse while working, and details a lot of living conditions that most Americans would regard as barbarous, it is clear that he loves the adventure and novelty of his life and work, as do his fellow writers, even if some of his lifestyle choices take a toll on him physically and financially.

While he occasionally makes stereotype-laden comments about his Thai wife and her family, he also lets it be known in print that he is blessed to have them and recognizes that he didn't deserve the boon of having his kids turn out as well as they did. He worries about meeting his financial responsibilities towards them, and his stints of living away from his wife and kids during his journalistic career serve to insulate them from a lot of the poverty and violence he sees and reports on, and some of the vices he and some of his fellow journalists engage in. He ends the book with an account of how he finally gave up smoking in the hopes of living long enough to see his kids grow up, and a bit of information about how he came to live and work in that part of the world, and how lucky he is to have the life he does.