The Oregon trailhead of The Drive: a bookstore event Monday in The Dalles
The Drive’s long book roadshow makes its penultimate stop Monday in a city not far from where the road trip it chronicles began: Klindt’s Booksellers in The Dalles, Oregon. The timing couldn’t be more poignant — the day after I travel to my little brother’s gravesite for a memorial service. On Mother’s Day we will say our goodbyes to Nellie Fox Edwards, laid to rest next to the grandson whose death precipitated the journey that became the book.
[image error]
The Drive: Searching for Lost Memories on the Pan-American highway has been adopted in Oregon — travel guru Rick Steves dedicated 20 minutes of his radio show/podcast to it this Spring (you can still listen here, it’s the last chunk and an amazing interview). Not one bookclub but FOUR are currently reading it there.
My aunt Ronnell Clift circulating it far and wide, my librarian friends Kent and Nancy Upton making sure libraries carry it, friends sending me rainy pictures of it on their dashboards; Other Mother fans like Sue Ann Arguelles shouting its praises to the independent owners of Klindt’s.
[image error]
They “get” road trips in Oregon. Not surprising, along the route of Lewis and Clark. Or Cheryl Strayed’s “Wild” that made movie stars of towns along the Columbia River Gorge.
[image error]
My parents were too grief-stricken to miss Oregon when they drove away from it in 1973. For me — this bookstore event will be a victory lap for the road trip of a lifetime. Fold the maps away; I’m home.
[image error]
If you’re in The Dalles, Oregon — come to Klindt’s from 5-7pm Monday and I’ll sign your book. Get yours at the store (he’s stocked up) through the buy-the-book links at the bottom of the landing page on my teresabrucebooks.com website or here or here. Planning a road trip? Buy the audiobook here. Like The Drive’s Facebook page and tweet back at me @writerteresa. Like travel anthologies? I’m in a brand new one called Alone Together: Tales of Sisterhood and Solitude in Latin America which you can get here.
