The Way Around

Finding My Mother and Myself Among the Yanomami

By: David Good

Narrated by: David Good

Rooted in two vastly different cultures, a young man struggles to understand himself, find his place in the world, and reconnect with his mother—and her remote tribe in the deepest jungles of the Amazon rainforest—in this powerful memoir that combines adventure, history, and anthropology.

“My Yanomami family called me by name. Anyopo-we. What it means, I soon learned, is ‘long way around’: I’d taken the long way around obstacles to be here among my people, back where I started. A twenty-year detour.”

For much of his young life, David Good was torn between two vastly different worlds. The son of an American anthropologist and a tribeswoman from a distant part of the Amazon, it took him twenty years to embrace his identity, reunite with the mother who left him when he was six, and claim his heritage.

The Way Around is Good’s amazing chronicle of self-discovery. Moving from the wilds of the Amazonian jungle to the paved confines of suburban New Jersey and back, it is the story of his parents, his American scientist-father and his mother who could not fully adapt to the Western lifestyle. Good writes sympathetically about his mother’s abandonment and the deleterious effect it had on his young self; of his rebellious teenage years marked by depression and drinking, and the near-fatal car accident that transformed him and gave him purpose to find a way back to his mother.

A compelling tale of recovery and discovery, The Way Around is a poignant, fascinating exploration of what family really means, and the way that the strongest bonds endure, even across decades and worlds.

Good story if you're a nerd like me

I liked it mostly from a historical perspective. The narration isn't great but still worth listening to.

Inspiring

I was touched and inspired by the life story of this young man learning who he was and where he came from.

compelling followup to Into the Heart

His dad's book I couldn't put down as it offered a compelling in-depth and different perspective on this people about whom I had heard and read only through missionaries. David's memoir and journey provided a unique and equally compelling, refreshing perspective. I would recommend these companion pieces to anyone who has married cross-culturally and had kids--or are kids--who struggle with their identity and connecting to the mom's culture. Hello David from Bethlehem! I was amazed to read how all these things were happening right down the road at NCC and in Easton the years I was bringing up my kids here after being dislocated from their births and short childhoods in a developing country. Your book was down-to-earth, relatable, honest, hopeful and a redemptive viewpoint on your dad's story. It makes total sense that only you could and should read it!

Narration is so poor

What disappointed you about The Way Around?

The story should have been fascinating. I found it dull and uninteresting. Narration was plodding.

Has The Way Around turned you off from other books in this genre?

no

How did the narrator detract from the book?

He did a very poor job

What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?

Disappointment