Press

The Last Voyage of the Cosmic Muffin
Reviewed by Jill Wing, Reporter for The Saratogian
September 12, 2006
At the Helm of the Muffin

SARATOGA SRPINGS, NY - A sensational new writer visits the Higher Grounds coffee shop at the Saratoga Springs Public Library ay 6 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 14, for a reception and book signing.

Valerie Perez, who grew up in Saratoga Springs, has penned a rollicking, rolling memoir that crests the wave of adventure during an unforgettable sail across the open Pacific. The captain is a seafarer who runs his ship like Ahab — a sometimes lovable, gentle, obstinate and stubborn “man-the-lifeboats” Ahab.

Her new memoir, The Last Voyage of the Cosmic Muffin, puts the reader at the helm of the 40-floot sailboat on an epic journey of discovery, madness, romance, sickness, hunger, loneliness and an awakening that has helped forge her path to the future.

Muffin is required reading for all women approaching the age of no return, and for men to float their dreams of adventure past their significant others, they just might take the bait.

When Perez turned 50, she decided to join the Peace Corps, taking a leave of absence as managing partner with Design Management Alliance in Bean Station, Tenn. She was sent to Micronesia, where she met Shepard Harris “Shep,” captain of the Cosmic Muffin. Harris was on the last leg of a round-trip sail from California to Australia.

The landlubber and seafarer found some common ground in their lives of adventure and Harris asked Perez to crew on the last leg. It was a two-person gig — Perez and Harris. The self-confessed clueless sailor was the crew.

The landlubber and the sailor gave in to their passions and struck out together on an extended voyage to Hawaii and, ultimately, to Shep’s home in Moss Landing, Calif.

In this engaging and compelling memoir, Valerie tells of falling in love with a man whose only real commitment is to himself. The two unlikely cabin mates spend months at sea, enduring a relationship that runs as hot and cold as the Pacific currents. Privacy was nil. There was no privy (head in boat-speak). After all, the Muffin was built for a man to sail.

Her writing is so vivid, the reader feels the dizzying agony of seasickness, the penetrating chill of wearing wet clothes braced against persistent wind and waves, the scratchy feel of crusty layers of salt on the skin, the loneliness of seeing a horizon that can’t be reached, the incessant stench of ocean water and its rich organic pit of writhing creatures, and of breathtaking moments of sunrise and joy, love and romance.

Muffin reads like an adventure/romance/survival novel. Perez never gives away the ending, keeping the reader in limbo between hating and loving Shep, wondering at times about Perez’s sanity and questioning her motives.

But it is most about finding a ray of spirituality that provides comfort against all odds. This is a page-turner that will engage readers in the spirit of high, spontaneous adventure that will leave an indelible imprint of one woman’s shot at attacking life with an unbridled passion.

Perez’s stop in Saratoga Springs is part of an East Coast swing on a book promotion tour in her parents’ 20-year-old RV. The Last Voyage of the Cosmic Muffin is available at amazon.com or www.valerieperez.com. To read more about her further adventures visit Valerie Perez’s blog www.beyondthesail.blogspot.com.

Dad and I again put flyers out at the farmers market. A cold and gloomy day kept the crowd down, but it wasn't raining in the afternoon, so at least the flyers did not turn into gloppy messages. Whenever there was someone getting either into or out of their cars I personally invited them to come to the reception. Everyone was pleasant. Nobody growled at me for tagging their car and I did not see a bunch of flyers tossed on the ground afterwards.

Mailboxes

Later, I drove and dad stuffed the mail boxes around the neighborhood. My neighborhood is country so the mailboxes are stuck alongside the road in what I discovered a haphazard sort of method. There is no standard height and boxes apparently don’t have to be in any particular condition to function as a repository for letters. One mailbox door nearly fell off and dangled on one rusty hinge when Dad opened it. Some had doors seemed glued shut and were difficult to open. Still other could not be shut. The mail boxes were perched precariously on top of posts that projected out of the ground in various angles. Two were placed behind guard rails. A few mailboxes were almost lost in a thicket of weeds. I suppose the owners grow tired of investing in something that is continually ripped out of the ground and flung into the next county when the snowplows go tearing by. I managed to drive up to all the boxes without hitting any, but made Dad a little nervous when he thought I got too close.