Demott, Tom

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Demott, Tom

PERSONAL:

Male.

ADDRESSES:

Home—San Francisco, CA.

CAREER:

Writer.

WRITINGS:

Into the Hearts of the Amazons: In Search of a Modern Matriarchy, University of Wisconsin Press/Terrace Books (Madison, WI), 2006.

Contributor to Clubmex and San Francisco Observer.

SIDELIGHTS:

Tom DeMott is a travel writer. He contributes regularly to Clubmex, the San Francisco Observer, and a number of other publications. DeMott published his first book, Into the Hearts of the Amazons: In Search of a Modern Matriarchy, in 2006. The book is a travelogue of his experiences in Mexico and his search for matriarchal patterns in Zapotec society. DeMott explains his early travels in the region, where he learned about death rituals in the area through his friendship with Rosa and Pablo, a mortuary owner. Interspersed between his chapters on personal encounters, DeMott includes his commentary on other anthropological accounts of the region and other travelogues.

Sarah Statz, reviewing the book on the Bookslut Web site, mentioned that she "could have overlooked the book's failure as a scholarly work, not to mention as a travel narrative. But the book's most egregious failure is that only one character is developed, and that is the author himself, who is male. That seems an odd choice in a book that proclaims itself to be about women." Booklist contributor Deborah Donovan wrote that the author's "conclusions are not earthshaking," but noted that "his engaging travelogue is packed with cultural anecdotes that will interest readers." Jim Hahn, reviewing the book in Library Journal, remarked that "Dermott's investigative zeal translates into a solid and engaging work of travel narrative."