Initiation Rites: A West African Odyssey

An inquisitive, all-American grad student abruptly ends his protracted adolescence when a graduate art program lands him in West Africa during the explosive summer of 1977. His traveling artist workshops in Ghana and Nigeria deteriorate from a summer of anticipated light-hearted cultural inquiry to a gauntlet of survival. He cavorts with fetish worshipers, challenges greedy, often stoned soldiers, and dances with death, all in the name of higher education and accelerated maturity. He quickly sheds his laissez-faire persona, realizing he is not in Maryland anymore. Blending humor and history, original pen and ink drawings, and stories that leave the reader wanting more, Initiation Rites is a fictional memoir that touches an adventurous spirit in all of us, that few have ever followed.