Destiny on the road
Books are meant to transport us to a different world. Some of them take that mandate literally, taking us cross-country on road trips — think Jack Kerouac’s On The Road or, more recently, Lily Brooks-Dalton’s Motorcycles I’ve Loved.
As a metaphor, the road trip is versatile; it sits at the centre of North American culture and has become a symbol of so many things: freedom, running, moving, unity, machismo.
A couple of titles that recently crossed my desk give a nod to both transportation and to transporting.
I Am a Truck, by New Brunswick writer Michelle Winters, features a Chevy Silverado in a short novel with the feel of a Coen brothers’ film. It takes place in rural Acadia — and while the book is written in English, much of the dialogue is in French.
Agathe’s husband, Réjean, disappears, leaving his beloved Silverado (he replaces the old model with a new one every year) abandoned by the roadside. So much does she identify his truck with him, she hugs the seat, just to get a smell of him.
This is a story about driving, freedom, rock ’n’ roll and the joys of taking control of your own destiny — and destination.
The second book is The Highway Kind, edited by Patrick Millikin, filled with short stories that explore, as the subtitle suggests, “fast cars, desperate drivers and dark roads.” Authors include mystery writer Michael Connolly, Diana Gabaldon and George Pelecanos.
Gabaldon, co-authoring with Doug Watkins, takes on a true story of a car accident in Germany in the1930s in “Fogmeister.” Investigating how the crash happened reflects the paranoia as Germany careens toward a world war.
These metaphorical road maps take us, as readers, places we’d never expect to go.