Travelogue

[close] For Kehinde Komolafe, success in her career and the accumulation of material objects can’t cover up the fact she feels lost and adrift. No matter how hard she tries, no matter how full she fills her life’s cup, she always feels as if something’s missing. A trip to China for business gives her the most unexpected idea: Kehinde is going to move to Beijing.

What at first seems like a grand adventure turns out to be exactly that—only not solely of the globetrotting variety Kehinde expected. In a different land and different culture, Kehinde must finally look deep inside herself and find the truth hidden there, the reason she has been unhappy all of these years despite all she has accomplished. Sexually abused as a child, it is her journey halfway across the world that gives her the courage to stand up, face it, and heal.

Inspired by the World Health Organization’s findings that estimate one hundred and fifty million girls and seventy-three million boys under the age of eighteen experienced sexual violence of varying degrees in the year 2002 alone, Kehinde selflessly shares her story with you. Her thoughts and feelings are a beacon to fellow victims, a reminder that not only can life go on, and that what they experienced is in their past but that their future is as bright as they care to make it.
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[close] E. N. Smith had worked in advertising for fourteen years before the grind finally wore her down. Burned out and unhappy, she chose the only sensible thing to do: she quit her job and moved to China. But what she thought was a trip to “shake things up” turned out to be a journey with both eye-opening and humorous results.

An exploration of culture, communication, and the human ability to transcend difference, Smith’s debut offers a funny and frank look at the width and breadth of the human experience. Her desire to capture the happenings of her travels began as a blog that soon morphed into something much, much more. Her book transcends definitions such as travelogue and guidebook, capturing her globetrotting adventure of self-expression and self-discovery with a rare combination of intimacy and vision. Traveling first to China followed by Thailand, Florence, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, and Singapore, her path forces her to look at the world differently and to emotionally open up to it for the first time. Going through stages of empowerment, loneliness, amazement, acceptance, and growth, in the end it is her acceptance that she is changing along the way that gives her spirit peace and strength.

A master class in self-deprecation and finding the humor in every situation, Smith’s debut is an honest account of a journey that doesn’t end conveniently yet still manages to encourage you to take chances that challenge your view of yourself and your place in the world. It examines that age-old expression, “Wherever you go—there you are,” with candor, precision, and bracing honesty. Sharp, insightful, and full of wit, Black Girl, Will Travel: Wheels Up… illuminates a fascinating metamorphosis that reminds us all that there is no greater gift than life—and our selves. [close]

[close] A broken mechanic packs his motorcycle and heads to Haiti to repair his own crumbling life.

* 2012 Reader Views Literary Award Winner *

* 2013 Independent Publisher Book Awards Silver Medal Winner *


Praise for Promise of Departure

"Refreshing stuff for us bookish riders ... a little Zen [and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance], a little Jupiter's Travels, fans of Pirsig and Simon will feel right at home." - Cycle Gurus

"Montgomery's debut recalls aspects of Laurence Sterne, with an introspective protagonist both pursued and pursuing some great intangible, the destination secondary to the many digressions along the way ... Engrossing prose" - Kirkus

"A story of true guilt and regret in such a powerful, dramatic setting ... sometimes difficult and depressing to read. But then, life itself is not always a bed of roses...it does tell it like it is." - Reader Views


My dearest little Maggie,

I'm sorry in ways you may never understand. Please know that I never wanted to leave you....

It wasn't the traditional birthday letter Greg had written his daughter four times before. But traditions, like everything else, had utterly unraveled.

Jobless and adrift in a workaday society he no longer recognizes, Greg is rattled in unexpected ways by the heartbreak in Haiti that clear January morning when he spots an unusual opportunity in the looped nightly news, something he can do - a small way he just might be able to help.

Facing divorce and an anesthetized hereafter, Greg shucks tradition and packs his motorcycle, headed to a shattered country to unexpectedly find the one thing he's abandoned.


Readers may also enjoy the following:
Jupiter's Travels |  The Sea Wolf |  Ghost Rider: Travels on the Healing Road |  The Bell Jar |  Life of Pi |  The Great Gatsby |  The Road |  Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry Into the Value of Work |  The Motorcycle Diaries: Notes on a Latin American Journey |  Gravity's Rainbow |
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance


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