"Shoot, Ask... and Run!": A Memoir of Photography, History, and Humanity

By Tony Huang

Shoot, Ask... and Run! by Chris Stowers (Earnshaw Books, January 2025)

Chris Stowers’ memoir, Shoot, Ask... and Run!, unfolds as a mesmerizing tapestry woven from the threads of a restless wanderer’s life—a photographer straddling the cusp of epochal global transformations from the late 1980s into the early 1990s. This is not merely a travelogue but a deeply porous narrative pulsating with raw insight, emotional candor, and unvarnished human connection.

From the visceral opening scene in Peshawar—where dawn breaks not with birdsong but gunfire and the pungent scent of hashish—Stowers catapults readers into a world governed by starkly different rules. His casual comparison of carrying a gun in Pakistan to wielding an umbrella in London is a potent metaphor, signaling the normalization of danger in his peripatetic existence. Yet, even amidst the rubble of a bombed school, where resilience seems the children’s instinct born from grim familiarity, Stowers’ own emotional turmoil pierces through, revealing the fragile humanity beneath the hardened exterior of conflict zones.

Shoot, Ask... and Run! is richly textured with moments both gritty and intimate. Technical asides on 64 ASA CodaChrome film and 81B filters ground us in the tangible craft behind the imagery, while encounters with eccentrics like Jim the paramedic linked to the Afghan Mujahideen or an aging Dutch optimist nuance the geopolitical backdrop without ever succumbing to didacticism. The silver talisman gifted by his friend Ata stands as a poignant symbol of protection and connection, a talisman not merely of superstition but of the fragile lifelines forged in far-flung locales.

The memoir’s pulse shifts fluidly between stark landscapes—from the frenetic, sensory overload of Jakarta’s street stalls and legless beggars to the sacred, serene vastness of Borobudur’s Buddhist spires. Stowers’ personal relationships — tender, awkward, and brutally honest — are rendered with an unflinching eye: his complicated, sometimes painful reflections on romance with Miranda and Felicia, the blunt grounding humor of friends, and the lonely undercurrent of a life meant for constant motion.

His jungle treks through Borneo—fraught with physical exhaustion, fear, and the relentlessness of the raw environment—contrast sharply with the antiseptic mundanity of proofreading jobs and guesthouse living, underscoring the duality of adventure and survival. The raw humanity of fleeting connections, whether fleeting embraces, unexpected encounters with old acquaintances, or stirring farewells on train platforms, repeatedly punctuates the narrative, evoking the transient yet profound nature of his journey.

Stowers inhabits a world caught between the old and the new—traditional river settlements juxtaposed against burgeoning oil ventures, post-Soviet Moscow’s chaotic flux, and the unraveling conflicts of Eastern Europe. His immersion reveals the political and cultural tremors shaking the late 20th century, yet he never loses sight of the individual stories within the grand sweep of history.

A particularly compelling thread is his gradual reckoning with the toll of a nomadic, freelance life—not merely its physical hazards but its emotional costs. The haunting refrain that travel and photography “are not a replacement for human relationships” reverberates throughout, revealing an introspective man torn between the pursuit of truth through his lens and the yearning for connection and security.

Stowers’ audacious gambits—like impersonating a journalist to board a ship or his resourceful covert photography in Seoul—infuse the memoir with a sense of daring, while the moments of kindness from strangers and unexpected gifts remind us of the fragile interdependence underpinning his odyssey.

Shoot, Ask... and Run! is more than a memoir; it is a lens into a volatile era, a meditation on identity, and a parable of resilience. Through its vivid storytelling and searing self-reflection, it challenges us to reconsider how personal narratives inhabit and illuminate history’s vast canvas—revealing the human textures that statistics and headlines so often overlook. This book promises to haunt and inspire, an essential journey for anyone fascinated by the intersection of art, history, and the indomitable human spirit.

Tony Huang

Tony Huang, PhD, is the founder and editor-in-chief of The Hong Kong Review. He is also the founder of Metacircle Fellowship, Metacircle (Hong Kong) Culture and Education Co., Ltd. and Metaeducation. He works as a guest-editor for SmokeLong Quarterly. His poems and translations have appeared in Mad Swirl, The Hong Kong Review, The Best Small Fictions Anthology Selections 2020, Tianjin Daily, Binhai Times, SmokeLong Quarterly, Nankai Journal, Large Ocean Poetry Quarterly, Yangcheng Evening News and other places.

Copy editor: Nancy He

Intern copy editor: Scarlet Li