Food Writer & Pop Culture Historian Nevin Martell Debuts His “Freak Show…”

Food connoisseur and author Nevin Martell gathered groupies for a party to celebrate the publishing of his sixth book Tuesday night.  Appropriately, the event for “Freak Show Without a Tent: Swimming with Piranhas, Getting Stoned in Fiji & Other Family Vacations” was held at 826DC‘s Museum of Unnatural History… and included a little learning alongside the friendly fete.

“While I was reexamining my childhood through working on this book, I became a father,” Martell, holding son Zephyr, shared with friends in attendance. And while reading an excerpt from the pages of his memoir, which chronicles his globetrotting family’s misadventures to far-flung corners of the world, he explained a bit about how his eccentric family exploits landed him where he is today — and maybe why he won’t force his son to dine on squid any time soon.

Martell’s childhood vacations were “more akin to National Geographic stories than predictable trips to the family beach house,” and Freak Show Without a Tent — part travelogue, part comedic misadventure — gives readers a glimpse into his Father’s ultimate wanderlust alongside his own coming of age.   “On our regular adventures, my sister and I often found ourselves thinking, ‘Buy the ticket, take the ride and hope we survive — so we can tell our therapists all about it later.'”

In the vein of  National Lampoon’s Vacation, Martell’s memoir is painfully funny yet poignant portrayal of the ties that bind… and the experimental meals that might have bound him up!  (Now available on Amazon)

*The book is a feast, but Martell boasts more sweets to come: “Next week we do an exclusive Freak Show Without a Tent doughnut at AstroDoughnuts,” Martell forecasted, “because of course I have to have my own doughnut…”  And he’ll be setting aside 10% of those proceeds to 826DC.  Because it’s Unnatural History, and Freak Show is a fan.