Le Road Trip

One of my favorite books  of the past few years was a little talked about memoir/sketchbook about a traveling woman who decided to stay put: When Wanderers Cease to Roam.  Her book and drawings and musings about life off the road were so captivating and so thought provoking that it sent me on several writing journeys of my own.  I give it as a gift quite frequently, and I use it for prompts for the many writing circles I run.

When Vivian Swift published this second book modeled much after the first, I knew without looking that I wanted a copy.  She recounts her roadtrip to France that she takes with her new husband.  What they see, where they go and those little travel adventures you have when visiting a foreign country.

Le Road Trip: A Traveler's Journal of Love and France is much like Wanderers in that it is a beautiful book with quirky observations, lovely sketches of all the author does and sees, a breakdown of the phases of a trip from beginning to the inevitable bad travel days to the parting.  This journal is full of reminiscences of past trips, quotes, and the little details that many over look: a mermaid door, the color of the sunset, a cat at a rooming house,  a particular cheese and wine at a cafe.

Ms Swift is taking a post wedding trip with her new husband, a man who is clearly her kindred spirit, so this book in a way is something of a love story--or perhaps a love tribute.   Because of the eclectic, poetic nature of the book, I am a little unclear as to how long the trip was and some of the day to day itinerary was a tad jumbled.  But it really did not matter.  The whole journal was a tribute to adventurers and travelers every where.  It made me a lot nostalgic for the road and anxious to try my hand at my high school french in Paris.  Everything is better with croissant.

Fun fact: did you know that France is the number one tourist destination by far?

This is another lovely book worth owning. Buy it if you can.

The Paris Wife by Paula Mclain

My oversized holiday led me away from reading, but I managed to sneak in this one extraordinary work of historical fiction:  a bittersweet love story about the first wife of Ernest Hemingway, Hadley Richardson. Paula Mclain has envisioned Ernest and Hadley's early years together before he was so well known and famous. She used the many biographies of Ernest, historical accounts of Paris in the 20's, and letters between Hadley and Ernest as source material. She presents an accurate depiction of their lives in Paris during the twenties when all the important writers and artists of the time were hanging out at Salons and bookstores.

Hadley is probably the most famous unknown wife in history, and this story of hers was a compelling and important one to tell. Now, I am going to have to go back and pick up some of the Hemingway that I dismissed as a young reader, especially A Moveable Feast which was Hemingway's novel about his time in Paris with Hadley.

The ending and epilogue rates at least two hankies.  Mclain makes the reader understand their early love, and subsequent pain at the end of their lives together.  What times they were...