Confessions of an Outlander addict

I will always remember this as the summer of big, life-changing things: I graduated with my Master of Fine Arts degree. I gave birth. And “Outlander” finally came to TV.

 

“Outlander” is a series of books by Diana Gabaldon, about World War II nurse who falls through a magical circle of stones, lands in 18th century Scotland and discovers passion with a rugged Highlander. You know, that ol’ boy-meets-time-traveling-girl story.

As you can tell from the description, this series is full of awesome. The time travel adds a science fiction element, but it’s not about weird robots or anything. It has enough history to make you feel virtuous. And it’s a bodice ripper — literally, bodices are ripped — but all the books have a simple, classic design, so there’s no naked Fabio on the cover to give away your secrets. (It’s the literary equivalent of those Adam & Eve packages that arrive wrapped in plain brown paper, so your mail carrier won’t find out you’ve ordered dildos.) It’s basically the best of every genre.

 

I’ve spent years waiting for this book to become a TV show (or movie — I’m not picky) and mentally casting the characters. YEARS. And it finally happened, thanks to the good people at Starz and my friend, Wendy, who lets me come to her house every week to watch it.

I purchased the first book in the series in 2010, when I was traveling around the world. I knew nothing about the story, only that Diana Gabaldon wrote freakishly long novels and that appealed to my backpacker’s budget. I had a great, big Kindle to fill and wanted the most pages for my buck.

“Outlander” quickly became my trusty travel companion. I was often lonely and sometimes bored, but “Outlander” always gave me a place to return.

In Bolivia, I spent some time volunteering at a monkey sanctuary. One of my fellow volunteers was, unfortunately, from Scotland. I mean, it’s terrific that he was Scottish. But it was unfortunate for him that he was forced to spend weeks listening to me yammer about Jacobite risings, Bonnie Prince Charlie, and Scottish time travel.

A lot of our conversations went like this:

ME: Have you ever fallen through the stones at Inverness?

HIM: Hmmm, let me think. No.

ME: Well, maybe you weren’t there on the right day.

HIM: I’ve never even been to Inverness.

ME: I don’t understand. Aren’t you Scottish?

Once some little Bolivian schoolgirls wanted to see my Kindle, and I showed them how to read books on the device. They squatted around me on the floor of a wooden house as I flicked from one page to another. Then a passage stood out, black and bold against the blue-grey light of the screen: “And I mean to hear ye groan like that again. And to moan and sob, even though you dinna wish to, for ye canna help it. I mean to make you sigh as though your heart would break, and scream with the wanting, and at last to cry out in my arms, and I shall know that I’ve served ye well.”

Oh my! I blushed furiously, even though the girls didn’t speak any English.

 

“Outlander” became my addiction. Every few weeks, whenever I reached a city with a decent wifi connection, I downloaded another book from the series. They sustained me throughout South America, every bit as much as chicha and salteñas.

In so many cold hostels, thousands of miles from home, dashing Highlander Jamie Fraser was by my side. While I rode in a rusted bus over dusty, pocked streets, jammed between sweaty farmers and clucking chickens, my mind was in the lush Scottish countryside. When a Bolivian woman peed on my backpack — no, “Outlander” did not help me with that. But afterward I did check into a real hotel with a bathtub, and I read “Outlander” while I soaked.

I read a lot during that backpacking year, and those books are now superimposed over my own experiences. It’s hard for me to think about the places I traveled without also remembering the characters and stories that joined me along the way. In the same way that an INXS song instantly transports me to my sophomore year homecoming dance, “Shantaram” takes me back to a steamy beach in Goa. Whenever I think about “The God of Small Things,” I’m once again curled under a filmy mosquito net in Rwanda. And Geoff Dyer doesn’t know it, but he joined me in a straw hut in rural Ethiopia. (I left him there too.)