• Read an Excerpt
• Reading Group Guide

Mary Kingsley was a brilliant, self-educated, articulate, well
read, strong willed, Victorian woman. For thirty-one years she was
trapped in the roles of maid and caregiver to her family, until her
parents died. Only then, could she finally escape her circumscribed
life in England, to follow her wanderlust --- to pack up and
travel. As a result, she became one of the first females to brave
the mysterious environs of West Africa. Her book, TRAVELS IN WEST
AFRICA, remains a classic to this day.

A part of Kingsley's legacy is to be found in her stoicism and
loyalty; in her honesty and courage; in her commitment to her
family, and unwavering devotion to her friends; the men whose
respect she gained as a writer, a traveler, and a humane being. In
HELLO TO THE CANNIBALS, Richard Bausch's latest novel he writes
both beautifully and lovingly as he celebrates the life of his
heroine.

"I wanted in particular to write a book about friendship, and about
the affections we form for those who have gone before us. Some of
what Mary Kingsley is known to have done is here, all of it in a
form that is transmuted by fancy … ," writes Bausch in his
authors' notes.

But, Bausch does not simply give us Mary Kingsley's story as a
straight, dry narrative of "faction"; rather, he segues back and
forth from Victorian England to the American south of the late
nineteen eighties to offer readers a second voice, that of Lily
Austin, who becomes not only the reader's guide to Kingsley's
extraordinary life, but also confides the confusions she must
reconcile on her own journey to some kind of self
fulfillment.

Lily's dream is to write a play about Kinglsey, working title:
HELLO TO THE CANNIBALS. She is the daughter of theater people and
has been enchanted by Kingsley since her fourteenth birthday, when
she received a book of famous explorers. Kingsley, of course, was
the only female. Lily is inspired by this woman's larger than life
accomplishments and is determined to celebrate her on the
stage.

Bausch's strategy is ingenious: he frames his story through
fictional letters and journals from the past juxtaposed against the
ones Lily writes in the present. As the novel unfolds Lily begins
to write to Mary in the same way Mary "wrote in her journals to a
fictionalized reader in the future". We learn about both women in
long lyrical passages that seem to compress time and put them in
the same space. The architecture of the book is riveted by the
similarities in the women without losing the sharp contrasts
between them.

This works beautifully because Bausch uses language and events like
an alchemist to create an atmosphere wherein the women seem to
become "friends". Bausch's writing is so skillful, his genius for
setting so real, his ear for dialogue pitch perfect, his gift for
plot unmatched and his ability to seamlessly segue back and forth
from nineteenth century England to the American south in the
twentieth century, resembles the fabric of a tightly woven tapestry
imbued with historical veracity and contemporary angst.

HELLO TO THE CANNIBALS is a deeply moving novel. It speaks to the
loss of innocence all children experience as they grow up,
especially, that "special" pain when youngsters begin to understand
that their parents, like everyone else, are not perfect; it deals
with women's sexuality or lack of it, in sympathetic
understatement; it presents psychological and geographical terrain
that Mary and Lily both learn to navigate; it presents the breadth
of diversity in the different kinds of marriages and friendships
people are bound up in. And, Bausch proposes, that the most
important lesson for all us is to learn that self respect is gained
not only by sacrifice to others but, too, in one's ability to
recognize one's own intrinsic needs and when the time is right we
must generate the courage needed to garner what is most valuable to
our self growth and individuation.