Holidays in Heck

Over twenty years ago, P.J. O’Rourke published Holidays in Hell, the classic travelogue that found him searching for excitement in places like Warsaw, Managua, and Belfast. In Holidays in Heck, the man dubbed “the funniest writer in America” by Time and The Wall Street Journal steps into the new and slightly less dangerous territory of the family vacation.

The O’Rourke clan treks to places as close to home as Disneyland and Washington, D.C., and as far-flung as China, all while P.J. attempts to dissuade his wife from shopping and keep his children entertained. His travels often leave him wishing he were under artillery fire again. At one point, the family takes a ski trip—to Ohio. Here, he warns his daughter not to ski out of bounds, “because it’s completely flat.” Later, during their visit to the National Museum of American History, P.J. calls the building, “ugly in a way that’s best described as built in 1964.” And one of his solo adventures takes him on a horse trek across the mountains of Kyrgyzstan, where his route consists of cliff faces that leave him dangling very much off of his saddle.