ship this book

Gary Janetti loves to travel. When he was a kid, his father worked for Cunard cruise lines, and the family got to go out on the Queen Elizabeth 2. He learned how to travel with ease and comfort when he was young, and he’s been on the road ever since. Backpacking in Europe after graduation. Living in a hotel in London for a few months while working on a television show there. Getting a once-in-a-lifetime shot to eat at the world’s best restaurant, Noma, while it was a pop-up in Mexico.

If you haven’t head of Gary Janetti, he is a writer and producer of television shows like Will and Grace and Family Guy, and he’s written a couple of other very funny books. Aside from a chapter about pitching a television series to Dame Maggie Smith, he doesn’t talk much about his writing career (I mean, if you got to have dinner with Derek Jacobi and Maggie Smith, wouldn’t you write about it?). But he does talk about his years spent traveling the world and how much joy that has brought him.

There are a lot of practical tips for travel in this book, like how to pack (carry-on only), and what to plan out in advance and what to let just happen on the trip, and how you should always get the lobster roll, but only if it’s truly a good lobster roll. He has an entire chapter where he lists all his favorite places to go and another where he gives his rules for being a traveler. But most of this book is a love letter to travel, to the places he’s been and the adventures he’s had and maybe not so much a love letter for the foghorn on the ship that was going off every two hours right above their cabin, but it does figure greatly into that chapter and possibly also the audio book, which I have not heard.

Janetti met his husband Brad in Mykonos when he was 35, and they’ve been together ever since. He went on trips with his family as a kid, and organized another one later for his and Brad’s parents and his sister, all of them together for a cruise through New England and Nova Scotia. He booked himself onto the final cruise of the QE2 before it was to retire, just to remember what it was like being on it as a kid. He’s been to the theater, eaten in restaurants, and stayed in hotels all over, and he knows the true joys of travel.

In travel, as with life, sometimes things go wrong. Sometimes you have to roll with it and keep smiling through 20 courses of delicate, bespoke food. Other times, you have to speak up to get moved to a cabin that’s not right under the foghorn. Sometimes the best meal of the entire trip is the hamburger, done just the way you like it. The most important thing is to be present. Notice the sunset. Be grateful for the small kindness that helped turn the bad day around. Fall in love. Remember to pack the Xanax. And definitely go see the Shakespeare play instead of the musical performed on roller skates.

I am a fan of Janetti’s writing, usually warm but filled with snark and a bit of gossip, or at least the feeling that you’ve been in on the gossip. We Are Experiencing a Slight Delay is more warmth and family memories than snark and gossip, but it was a lovely read and definitely a trip worth taking. There is certainly some humor, but it’s not got such sharp edges this time. Maybe it’s because of his love of travel, maybe it’s because he’s talking about pretty personal stories of family, or maybe it’s because he’s looking at life from the other side of 50. I’m not sure it matters. Either way, I will strongly recommend people read this book and any others he is kind enough to write for us because there is something very special in how he sees the world, and the fact that we get to share in his stories is a trip in itself.

Egalleys for We Are Experiencing a Slight Delay were provided by Harper through Edelweiss, with many thanks.