Within weeks of arriving as a volunteer in a remote corner of South America, Crawford got a lot more than he bargained for: a narrow escape from a kidnapping plot hatched by the people he was sent there to help. Then things only got stranger. In his quest to find adventure, Crawford undertook a savage journey of danger, drugs, sex, and alarming illness. What resulted is "The Gringo": one part literary tale of two lonely years in the Amazon jungle and one part gonzo-journalism account of life in the Peace Corps, an agency wandering aimlessly through the twenty-first century. Filled with sharp...