Undress Me in the Temple of Heaven

Susan Jane Gilman

Mar 2009 · Hachette Audio · Narrated by Susan Jane Gilman

About this audiobook

Bestselling author Susan Jane Gilman's memoir is a hilarious and harrowing journey—a modern heart of darkness filled with Communist operatives, backpackers, and pancakes. 

They were young, brilliant, and bold. They set out to conquer the world. But the world had other plans for them.

Bestselling author Susan Jane Gilman's new memoir is a hilarious and harrowing journey, a modern heart of darkness filled with Communist operatives, backpackers, and pancakes.

In 1986, fresh out of college, Gilman and her friend Claire yearned to do something daring and original that did not involve getting a job. Inspired by a place mat at the International House of Pancakes, they decided to embark on an ambitious trip around the globe, starting in the People's Republic of China. At that point, China had been open to independent travelers for roughly ten minutes.

Armed only with the collected works of Nietzsche, an astrological love guide, and an arsenal of bravado, the two friends plunged into the dusty streets of Shanghai. Unsurprisingly, they quickly found themselves in over their heads. As they ventured off the map deep into Chinese territory, they were stripped of everything familiar and forced to confront their limitations amid culture shock and government surveillance. What began as a journey full of humor, eroticism, and enlightenment grew increasingly sinister-becoming a real-life international thriller that transformed them forever.

Undress Me in the Temple of Heaven is a flat-out page-turner, an astonishing true story of hubris and redemption told with Gilman's trademark compassion, lyricism, and wit.

Ratings and reviews

I listened to this audiobook because I felt a desire to listen to a memoir and i feel this book is good because I feel it is interesting. The only minor negatives were that there were rather a lot of glitches when I was listening to my audiobook and I had mixed feelings about a remark the author made relating to Asperger syndrome. Yes, I feel this book is good because I feel it is interesting.

About the author

Susan Jane Gilman is the author of Hypocrite in a Pouffy White Dressand Kiss My Tiara. She has an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Michigan, and has written commentary for The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, and Ms. magazine, among others. Her fiction and essays have received several literary awards. Though she lives in Geneva, Switzerland, she remains, eternally, a child of New York.