Undress me in the Temple of Heaven

a memoir

“Packs the full wallop of disorienting, in-the-moment, transformative adventure.” -- Publishers' Weekly.

“Undress me in the Temple of Heaven has an edge-of-your-seat quality…and crosses into thriller territory” -- USA Today

“A Great American Story.” -- The Ann Arbor News

“Gilman takes us on a journey that feels terrifyingly real, immediate and life-threatening. The woman is no less than a godsend to a reading world that has become too used to lies, half-truth and spin.” --Alexandra Fuller 

In 1986, Gilman and a classmate embarked on a bold backpacking trek through the People’s Republic of China, which had only just opened up to independent travelers. Armed only with the collected works of Nietzsche and an astrology book, the two young women, unsurprisingly, quickly found themselves in over their heads: Hungry, disoriented, stripped of everything familiar, and under constant government surveillance. Soon, they began to unravel —one physically, the other psychologically. What began as a lighthearted adventure became a real-life international thriller that transformed them forever.

An Oprah Book Club recommendation
Best Books of 2009 -- Amazon's Editors' Pick
Best Nonfiction Books of 2009 —B&N