American Shaolin: One Man's Quest to Become a Kungfu Master

Description

A hilarious memoir by the first skinny white American to learn Kung Fu from the original Shaolin masters. AMERICAN SHAOLIN is the brilliantly funny memoir from the first American - and a 90 pound weakling at that - to study kung fu with monks at the original Shaolin temple in China, in a two-year martial arts odyssey that includes gruelling days of training, a forbidden romance with a local woman, and ultimately a challenge match against a rival Kung Fu master with the Temple's honour at stake.

Matthew Polly is a freelance writer living in NYC. His work has appeared in Esquire, Playboy, The Nation, and Slate. Joe Veltre sold NA rights to Brendan Cahill at Gotham Books. Howie Sanders is handling film rights. Author Location: New York

'A sensibility more alien to my own than Matthew Polly's is hard to imagine. I consider foreign cultures to be really ... foreign. I don't spiritually quest; I go to church. As for the martial arts, I own a gun. But I loved American Shaolin. Reading it was like being abducted by an alien -- a brilliant, funny, and hospitable alien who took me to another universe of sensibility. There I enjoyed myself immensely' P.J. O'Rourke 'Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, Jet Li and David Carradine all played Shaolin Monks, but Matthew Polly actually lived it. In American Shaolin, he enters China's most famous temple, the birthplace of zen and martial arts, and uncovers unique insights on religion, sex, politics, and kicking butt-a revealing confession of monastic life in modern China.' Gene Ching, KUNG FU TAI CHI MAGAZINE