The Helsinki Book Review has just posted a very thoughtful and generous review of Stealing With the Eyes. Here’s an extractː
Moving in the realms of personal travelogue and the novel, Stealing with the Eyes is a curious and always entertaining Book, driven by lively dialogue with occasional dips into beautiful observations that verge on epiphany… In place of theorizations, Buckingham presents everyday occurrences with local people, and through dialogue the reader can feel the impact of brutal colonial history, Catholicism, alcohol, magic, hospitality, and other pervading features of the Tanimbarese reality. At times, the text reads almost like a thriller: Buckingham gets seriously ill on the island, and his nocturnal staggering in the darkness to find a way to the outhouse is portrayed in a surprisingly engaging way, from the dog he accidentally kicks in the dark to the various healing methods the locals apply in the subsequent days. It is all thanks to Buckingham’s ear for good storytelling, so that the book moves with the narrative arc of a novel.
You can read the full review here.
