Author(s): Joe Queenan

Sport/Transport

Cultural commentator as well as fearsomely amusing film critic, Queenan's biting style and incisive wit have become the trademarks of his writing - and Queenan Country promises to be no different. One semi-tropical Fourth of July, Joe Queenan's English wife suggested that the family might like a chicken vindaloo in lieu of the customary barbecue. It was this pitiless act of gastronomic cultural oppression, coupled with dread of the fearsome Christmas pudding that awaited him for dessert, that inspired the author to make a solitary pilgrimage to Great Britain. Freed from the obligation to visit an unending procession of Aunty Margarets and Cousin Robins, as he had done for the first 26 years of their marriage, Queenan decided that he would not come back from Albion until he had finally figured out what made the British tick. His trip was not in vain. Crisscrossing Old Blighty like Cromwell hunting Papists, Queenan finally came to terms with the choochiness, squiffiness, ponciness and sticky wicketness that lies at the heart of the British character. At the end of his epic adventure, the author returns chastened, wiser and happier, encouraged that his wife is as sane as she is, all things considered.