The art of looking

Far and Away: Reporting from the Brink of Change. By Andrew Solomon. Scribner; 592 pages; $30.

ANDREW SOLOMON is an inveterate traveller. In his two most recent books, “The Noonday Demon” and “Far from the Tree”, he journeyed inward, in the first exploring the world of depression, from which he has suffered, in the second considering children who have surprised or disappointed their parents, as he did by being gay. These are both substantial works that required intense, far-reaching research. So it is a surprise to find that all the time he was writing them Mr Solomon was also travelling the world.

The 28 pieces gathered here are the fruits of 25 years of travel to 83 countries and all seven continents. He believes that engaging with different cultures is “the necessary remedy to our perilously frightened times”. So he is never a tourist, but instead aims for total immersion wherever he goes, winning the confidence of the people he meets, forging solid friendships.

Mr Solomon was a timid child, “afraid of the world”, terrified that, as a grown up, he might have to go and fight in Vietnam. It was in part his homosexuality that drove him abroad. In the end, it was England where he mustered the courage to come out. In 1988 a British magazine sent him to the Soviet Union to report on Sotheby’s first sale of contemporary Soviet art. Sotheby’s was offering diplomatic entertainment, singing Gypsies, caviar and champagne. Mr Solomon opted instead to hang out with a band of avant-garde artists who had stuck together through hard times “like the early Christians, or like Freemasons”.

Mr Solomon is drawn to countries that are struggling or being transformed: Afghanistan, Myanmar, South Africa, Cambodia. He is good at the big picture, but he prefers to understand countries from human stories. His piece on Rwanda opens with a masterfully concise exposition of the Hutu-Tutsi conflict and closes with a woman asking Mr Solomon how she can love a daughter born of rape. He has gifts of compassion and close attention that make people keen to confide in him.

The final piece takes the reader to the Great Barrier Reef and a scuba-diving holiday. What should have been an idyll turns into a nightmare when Mr Solomon is nearly drowned. As he drifts in the sea, certain he will die, he thinks achingly of his four children, to whom this book is dedicated. Being a parent, he concludes, is the most thrilling journey of all.