refrain recounts the author’s travels in India as an inexperienced and sensitive young man. The narrative shows wit, intelligence and a facility with words. The style is experimental and literary; and the fascination of the stories told – short stories in verse presenting the anxieties and misfortunes typical of shoestring traveling, and the culture-shock deriving from visiting a very different culture from ones own – carries the careful reader along. Readers can quickly acquire a knack for reading this less-than-conventional fast-paced book, at once humorous and nightmarish, passionate and detached.