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Welcome To Paradise!
You know the drill: travel to an exotic South Seas island to escape the rat race and live in paradise…on the real life island that inspired the “Mutiny On The Bounty” legend – the real island where that happened, with scenery like this staring back at you every single day:
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How could you not find this a dream come true? Well, one Author spent years getting permission to move to this island paradise…here is a map to show you where the “Mutiny On The Bounty” island is located:
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Author Dia Birkett’s book lays out what it took to finally be allowed to move to Pitcairn island, and her experience once there – and as the title of the book points out, it was NOT what she expected…
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Serpent In Paradise!
For this “Weekly Wednesday Bookmobile”, I want to share a real-life adventure that shows that you need to be careful what you wish for! This fascinating non-fiction book is about finding a new life in paradise – except this reality takes a very dark turn for the Author!
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This is the amazing true story of Author Dia Birkett’s move to paradise – Pitcairn Island, the real-life location for “Mutiny On The Bounty.” But what she found was FAR FROM PARADISE….
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From the Author’s website:
“I was sitting in the darkened cinema at the Elephant and Castle, central London, watching the film The Bounty, starring Anthony Hopkins as Captain William Bligh and Mel Gibson as mutineer Fletcher Christian. It was drizzling outside; my mood was as dreary. The story of youthful rebellion unfolded before me on the screen. Fletcher Christian led his cast of mutineers against the authoritarian Captain Bligh, casting him over the side of the ship. Ten months later, Christian and his mutinous crew, together with a handful of Tahitian men and, most importantly, women, landed on Pitcairn Island to found a new Utopia.
As the credits for the film rolled, the words came up on screen, ‘ . . . his descendants live on Pitcairn Island to this day.’ When I emerged into the dark street and it was still drizzling, I resolved to leave for Pitcairn Island.”
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Here is more of her story:
“Pitcairn has no airstrip, and the only way to reach it is to hitch a lift on a cargo vessel working the route from Panama Canal across the South Pacific. It took two years of planning and persuasion to eventually land on this uttermost end of the earth. And what I found was not a living Paradise, but an outcrop of Hell. Serpent in Paradise is the story of that slow revelation.”
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Birkett’s story is an amazing adventure – and a troubling look at paradise – one that shuns outsiders, and has some very dark secrets…after the book was published, half the men of the island were convicted of sexual abuse against children. Mayor Steve Christian was found guilty of five counts of rape against minors. Vanity Fair had a chilling article about this, and here is the article on the trial that I pulled from the Los Angeles Times.
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As the Author herself said:
Pitcairn is a troubled isle. When Serpent in Paradise was published, I received some criticism for saying that it was a less than perfect place. But now, with the conviction of six men – half of the island’s adult male population – for serious sexual offences against children, including rape, the image of Pitcairn as an earthly Paradise is beginning to crack. How could such widespread abuse have occurred, and for so long, without anyone suspecting? Here are some of my articles in response to those convictions
You can see more on this by visiting the Author’s website here:
http://www.deabirkett.com/pages/books/serpent_in_paradise/articles.htm
This is a powerful book!
I have shared other books about life on a south seas island, like this one: where a teacher took an assignment for a year in paradise:
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As the title says, it’s not that easy living in a place like this – you can see this terrific book here:
Let me know what you think of this week’s wanderlust edition of “Wednesday Bookmobile!”