In the 1990s, the bumper sticker
“Thelma and Louise Live!” sprouted on mini-vans driven
by mothers in suburbs across America, proclaiming a craving for a
journey beyond the kids’ soccer fields. The 19 women writers
who contributed to A Road of Her Own: Women’s
Journeys in the West have peeled out of the daily
commute, and followed a new path, at least until their wheels got
stuck, or their editors and husbands called them home.
This book is not a travel guide. Few of us want to follow Linda
Hasselstrom when she meets every lecherous man in Nebraska on a hot
summer day, or Kim Barnes as she bottoms out, trying to reach
Idaho’s Clearwater River with two whining kids. But these
women share the wisdom they gained along the way. Hasselstrom uses
the old “I’ve got to get home to my four babies”
line to escape harm, and stashes extra cash in her tampon box, the
one place in her car she figures men would not dare search.
Other stories break away from the idea that a road trip
must involve an engine and headlights. Bharti Kirchner finds
inspiration running on San Francisco’s urban streets, and
Susan Ewing drives a team of sled dogs in the Yukon.
One
closes the book remembering that the road is not the exclusive
domain of writers: It is open to all, and the only excuse a person
needs is curiosity. Don’t wait until your husband leaves you
or your mother gets cancer … go ahead and put the mini-van in
“drive.”
A Road of Her Own:
Women’s journeys in the West
Edited by
Marlene Blessing
211 pages, hardcover: $24.95. Fulcrum
Publishing, 2002.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Women take the wheel.
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