Land of Allusions

by Andrew Davie

A Memoir of Movement, Meaning, and Reinvention

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THE STORY

About the book

Themes

Facing Illness Reinventing Yourself

Spanning twenty-five years of personal milestones, Land of Allusions offers a candid look into Andrew Davie's life.

From New York’s theater scene to classrooms across the globe, from fleeting online romances to unexpected medical crises, Davie invites readers into a life that never stays in one place for long.

Managing obsessive-compulsive disorder and coming face to face with a ruptured brain aneurysm, he examines the threads that tie purpose to persistence. With sharp wit and a wealth of cultural references, Davie finds connection in the disjointed—linking boxing legends to Fulbright grants, failed documentaries to self-discovery, and awkward first dates to the human need for belonging.

Poignant, funny and honest, Land of Allusions is a memoir of reinvention and the strange poetry of life when it refuses to go according to plan.

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Of all things in life, the most difficult to endure is love unrequited.

—My recollection of the caption for the painting The Smoker by Frans Hals

My name’s Louden, Louden Swain. Last week I turned eighteen. I wasn’t ready for it. I haven’t done anything yet. So I made this deal with myself: this is the year I make my mark.

—Louden Swain, Vision Quest

The following is my analysis of two dating apps I tried on and off from 2014 to 2020.

Louden Swain is the lead character in the novel and film adaptation Vision Quest. In the film, he is a high school wrestler who wants to face off against the best wrestler in the state, Brian Shute. At the same time, Louden and his father provide temporary housing for an artist/drifter named Carla who’s just passing through town. By the end of the film (spoiler alert), Louden has gone on to lose his virgini-ty to Carla and defeat Brian Shute.

Brian Shute is a behemoth who, I believe, had gone undefeated for his entire high school career until wrestling Louden Swain. Certainly, Shute had been undefeated that year. He also looked like he’d been carved from granite. When he first appears in the movie, he’s walking up and down the bleachers of a football stadium while balancing a giant log across his shoulders. Not only does Louden Swain pin him in the movie, but he also uses an under/over throw—which would work maybe one out of every thou-sand attempts. The suspension of disbelief required for this is up there with Rocky Balboa lasting more than thirty seconds against Ivan Drago in Rocky IV.

During filming, Sylvester Stallone (Rocky) told Dolph Lundgren, the actor playing Drago, to actually throw punches. This was a bad idea. Lundgren is six feet five inches tall and a black belt. Stallone end-ed up with a swollen pericardial sac around his heart and had to be rushed to the emergency room by plane. His insurance company thought he was faking it; they said Stallone’s injuries looked like they’d been caused by a head-on collision.

With regard to Vision Quest, I used to watch the movie when I wrestled in high school since it dealt with the two things that most interested me: becoming state champ and losing my virginity to Linda Fiorentino. Sadly, neither happened. By the way, I made it to the New York State private school wres-tling finals my junior year at 119 pounds and lost 6–0—but that’s neither here nor there.

Andrew Davie