In Even A Daughter Is Better Than Nothing, Mykel Board presents a brilliant and wicked trip into the depths of Outer Mongolia in 1995, just after the fall of Communism. Incisive and outrageous, Board recounts his year of  teaching English and exploiting the natives at the National University in Ulaanbaatar. Join him on his twisting (and twisted) journey through Mongolian drinking, heavy metal, wrestling, problematic plumbing and sex, as he meets some of the kindest, most resilient individuals on earth.

MYKEL BOARD has written dozens of freelance articles and seventeen novels under pseudonyms. Maximum Rock’n’Roll  has been printing his political/sexual column for more than 20 years. I, A Me-ist, a book of those columns is scheduled for publication at the end of 2005. Even A Daughter Is Better Than Nothing is Board’s first book with his name on the front cover.

 ISBN 1891053000  |  PRICE $14.95  |  TRAVEL / MEMOIR | 336 PAGES  | photographs

 

---

“As if the Travels of Marco Polo had been written by Sir Richard Burton”
                                  - Bob Black, author of The Abolition of Work

 “At a time when travel writing has become a mere showcase for an author’s endless philosophizing, Mykel Board’s book is a refreshingly philosophy free recounting of people and events in deepest Mongolia, especially dear to those who will never get there ourselves. The style is clean and direct, the viewpoint both dispassionate and loving, and there is no patronizing analysis of a foreign world on display. It’s funny and true—some people may find Board eccentric, but I find his bent point of view remarkably sane.”  - Jennifer Blowdryer, NY Press

“Those of you familiar with Mykel Board as the elder statesman of punk and agitator emeritus for Maximum Rock’n’Roll should now get ready to meet Mykel Board—world traveler, cultural investigator and English teacher. Mykel brings his unique and often inflammatory world view with him everywhere he lands and Mongol hordes will never be the same”      -          Dale Ashmun, Psychotronic Video Magazine

The Byzantine trip to Ulaanbataar previews the surreal experience of living in a country where nothing works ("it doesn't matter how many Mongolians it takes to change a lightbulb. The new one won't work either")—not the plumbing, electricity, the security guards or the government. Yet despite the hardships of a winter that lasts from September to June, a constant barrage of language and domestic problems, and the unavailability of sexual partners of either gender (Board constantly seeks sex), the author becomes fully engaged in the intricacies of the country's customs. He participates in a sheep-killing ritual, plunges headlong into a wrestling competition, drinks Genghis Khan vodka and slogs through the mud of the town of Moron. When he returns to the sterile environs of New York, he plots his next trip to the ends of the earth. Board's scatology may offend some readers, and his obsession with sex parallels his obsession with Mongolia in this highly colloquial travel memoir.  –Publisher’s Weekly

A 21st Century version of Mark Twain's An American Abroad that I guarantee will have you laughing out loud, as well as marveling at the unimaginably enormous cultural gabs that a New York Jew in Ulaanbaatar has to content with. The chapter on Mykel's trek into the Gobi Desert is worth the price of this book alone-- both rib=splittingly funny and a harrowing, nail-biting adventure. And oh yeah, that irascible politcally-incorrect wit, the irrepressible horniness, and the self-deprecating sense of humor. The book didn't make me want to visit Mongolia; I'm not nearly as brave (or as stupid) as the author. But it sure made me glad that Mykel did. --Jim Testa Jersey Beat Magazine

Whatever his faults, Board has an ear for white noise, an eye for surreal barely-believable deranged detail and a knack for turning his idiosyncratic experiences into eminently readable prose. He knows how to tell a story, that’s for sure, being the kind of person who seemingly goes out of his way to get into as much deep shit as possible because he knows that, when (if) he comes out the other end it will make for a much better tale to recount. If there’s an easy or hard way to do something, Board will unerringly instantly choose the latter. Which makes for good reading but not, it must be said, for a particularly easy life. --Graham Rae in Laurahird.com. Read the entire review here

Mykel Board is the like the guy you go on the road with because he seems cool at first. Pretty quickly into the trip, you want to strangle him, and after the trip is over, you look back fondly on time spent with him. He's snotty and spends a lot of time trying to figure out which buttons to push to really set you off, then pushes them. At the same time, he has a lucid eye for undercurrents, just below the surface. He has a tenderness, too. Deep down, you get the sense that he cares, that he just wants to do right by the people around him. It's this dichotomy, along with the remote setting and people that makes Even A Daughter Is Better Than Nothing more than just a collection of columns or just a travel book. It's a unique and powerful view of an odd man at the end of the world. --Sean Carsell in Razorcake. Read the entire review here.

Essentially, this is a sex (by anyone other than Board), drugs, rock’nroll (and wrestling, often together) tour of Mongolia. And for Board’s recounting, the country as an alluring travel destination is richer for it, albeit in a slightly sadomasochistic kind of way. I can’t wait for his trip to Turkmenistan.  --Chris Ord in Thetravelrag.com. Read the entire review here.

...an unusual, entertaining, and refreshingly low-brow, portrait of Mongolia. Although his mission is in some ways adolescent and naive, it is also endearing. Our narrator is an idiot, a punk, and a Gen Xer, on a quest to find an experience untainted by "Staples, McDonald's, and Barnes & Noble." In the end, with Mongolia, he seems to have found it. --Jennifer Bassett in KGBBar Lit. Read the entire review here.

You can hear an entire radio interview about the book.  (On the Lit Show on WNUR) with Mykel Board.

 The book is PUBLISHED BY GARRETT COUNTY PRESS

For review copies contact: Garret County Press: darby@gcpress.com

Mykel Board is available for interviews and readings.  Contact him directly at: mongol@mykelboard.com or leave a message at: 212-674-7018.