Middle-aged burnout. Itinerant beach bum. Wannabe world traveler. Anthony Abelaye books a trip to Thailand and finds himself in a land of seeming hallucinations and perverse fantasy. What he thinks will be a brief vacation getaway instead becomes an obsession with a woman he meets who soon begins to haunt his every waking moment.

Part travelogue, part confessional, Thai Dyed: Heartbreak and Hedonism in the Land of Smiles is Abelaye’s head-first dive into Thailand’s kaleidoscopic culture and infamous nightlife.