What do you think?
Rate this book
Sister of the Road: The Autobiography of Boxcar Bertha
Another raging slab of real American history you're not likely to find in the textbooks. It's a window into a wildly under-appreciated dropout culture that gets left out of the stultifying fairytales that pass for history books—a much more rowdy and messily interesting tradition than the guardians of propriety, steeped in those other great American traditions of puritanism and hypocrisy, let on. Hobo jungles, bughouses, whorehouses, Chicago's Main Stem, IWW meeting halls, skid rows and open freight cars—these were the haunts of the free thinking and free loving Bertha Thompson. This vivid autobiography recounts one hell of a rugged woman's hard-living depression-era saga of misadventures with pimps, hopheads, murderers, yeggs, wobblies and anarchists.
"...her narrative is cauliflower-eared by the brutal truth."— Time
"Thompson's capacity for taking pleasure in her experiences is as striking as the enormous range of her sympathy."—Luc Santé, New York Review Of Books
Dr. Ben Reitman (1880–1942)—hobo, whorehouse physician, anarchist agitator, and tour manager/lover of Emma Goldman, was a mighty interesting character in his own right. This edition has a new afterword by Barry Pateman, curator of UC Berkeley's Emma Goldman Papers, which contains information on the background of the book, and of author Dr. Ben Reitman.
"...her narrative is cauliflower-eared by the brutal truth."— Time
"Thompson's capacity for taking pleasure in her experiences is as striking as the enormous range of her sympathy."—Luc Santé, New York Review Of Books
Dr. Ben Reitman (1880–1942)—hobo, whorehouse physician, anarchist agitator, and tour manager/lover of Emma Goldman, was a mighty interesting character in his own right. This edition has a new afterword by Barry Pateman, curator of UC Berkeley's Emma Goldman Papers, which contains information on the background of the book, and of author Dr. Ben Reitman.
208 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1937
26 people are currently reading
728 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 47 reviews
May 25, 2023
Teach me feminism, anarchism, abolitionism, utopianism and any other -isms out there. Before reading this book, I didn't know what some of these 'isms' meant. For example, I learnt from university challenge that the Russian author, Bakunin was an anarchist but in my mind I have always wondered 'what does an anarchist do? I will buy myself one of those fat books, I think they call them 'dictionaries' so that I can learn little by little the meaning of the 'isms'. That was on a light note. The author did a good job in explaining some of these concepts. Through the flattering wagging tongues of the 'hoboes' depicted in this book I have learnt so much more than just the highlighted 'isms'.
So what is this book about? It is about a woman named Bertha Boxcar and her quest to ensure the equality and better treatment of American 'hoboes'. Bertha represents the hoboes in America in the 70's and 80's. Hoboes are people the society have grown to dislike. They are the 'crooked' members of the society, such as prostitutes, vagabonds, drunkards, and thieves. They hop like sparrows from twig to twig and no one can tell where they are coming from or where they are going. 'Hoboes' are blamed for all the sins under the sun. Despite the labels, the 'hoboes' depicted in this book have refused to condemn themselves. They have a mind of their own which is as a result of 'eating' too much knowledge. While kings, popes, presidents, capitalists and post-capitalists are busy wagging their tongues in their palaces and offices, the 'hoboes' are the masters of the streets and they don't waste their words.
The 'hoboes' are open enemies of the status quo. They have refused to bend their backs to those they consider are their oppressors. The oppressors are the hard taskmasters who take advantage of their miseries. The oppressors consider themselves to be more superior and educated than the hoboes. They include such people as pimps, politicians, policemen, judges, and religious leaders. The oppressors represent the propertied classes and their main role, according to the hoboes, is to pass and enforce doctrines aimed at persecuting them.
Another thing, I was immensely taken with the hoboes' charms of the mind. I really enjoyed their lyrical and philosophical conversations about life and politics. Sometimes I had to control my desire to laugh out loud at their filthy language and jokes. In the end, I did not accept all the views for or against society that were expressed in this book, but I do not reject them either. Sometimes they do exaggerate, but even then, they have nothing to loose by their exaggeration but the chains the society has placed on them.
So what is this book about? It is about a woman named Bertha Boxcar and her quest to ensure the equality and better treatment of American 'hoboes'. Bertha represents the hoboes in America in the 70's and 80's. Hoboes are people the society have grown to dislike. They are the 'crooked' members of the society, such as prostitutes, vagabonds, drunkards, and thieves. They hop like sparrows from twig to twig and no one can tell where they are coming from or where they are going. 'Hoboes' are blamed for all the sins under the sun. Despite the labels, the 'hoboes' depicted in this book have refused to condemn themselves. They have a mind of their own which is as a result of 'eating' too much knowledge. While kings, popes, presidents, capitalists and post-capitalists are busy wagging their tongues in their palaces and offices, the 'hoboes' are the masters of the streets and they don't waste their words.
The 'hoboes' are open enemies of the status quo. They have refused to bend their backs to those they consider are their oppressors. The oppressors are the hard taskmasters who take advantage of their miseries. The oppressors consider themselves to be more superior and educated than the hoboes. They include such people as pimps, politicians, policemen, judges, and religious leaders. The oppressors represent the propertied classes and their main role, according to the hoboes, is to pass and enforce doctrines aimed at persecuting them.
Another thing, I was immensely taken with the hoboes' charms of the mind. I really enjoyed their lyrical and philosophical conversations about life and politics. Sometimes I had to control my desire to laugh out loud at their filthy language and jokes. In the end, I did not accept all the views for or against society that were expressed in this book, but I do not reject them either. Sometimes they do exaggerate, but even then, they have nothing to loose by their exaggeration but the chains the society has placed on them.
April 4, 2013
(review originally written for bookslut)
I am one of those people who always wants to know whether a movie, book, or story is true. It's not so much that I think true stories are somehow better than fiction, but that I appreciate them differently. For instance, I adore the novel Jane Eyre and am not in the least bit disturbed that there is no way it could be a true story, yet the movie Erin Brockovich would not be nearly so charming if it were not true. That said, when I picked up Sister of the Road - The Autobiography of Boxcar Bertha in the bookstore, I knew I had to read it. Described as the autobiography of a hobo "free-thinking and free-loving" woman in the early twentieth century, it sounded radical and inspiring. And the book was radical and inspiring, right up until the afterward, where it was confessed that Sister of the Road was not, in fact, an autobiography, but rather a work of fiction. Let's just say that I was very annoyed.
I still think that Sister of the Road is an interesting story and one worth reading. However, I would be much more interesting in reading the life story of the man who wrote it. Dr. Ben Reitman was a hobo, a writer, a doctor, an agitator, an educator, a lover of Emma Goldman and a distributor of birth control information at a time when such doing so was illegal and highly dangerous. Now that would be an interesting story.
But back to the book at hand. Once I recovered from my peevishness at being duped, I realized that Sister of the Road really did not lose much for not being literally true. After all, Reitman based this book largely on three women that he knew, as well as material from hundreds of conversations he had with various tramps, hoboes, and other people on the road throughout the course of his life. It remains a provocative glimpse into a way of life and an entire culture that most people were never aware existed.
Boxcar Bertha grew up in communes, railway yards, and in hobo hotels that her mother, who both practiced and preached free-love, operated. Her education was primarily one of speaking with vagrants, socialist, and activists of all kinds. By the time she was sixteen, she was criss-crossing the country on trains, mostly by hoboing, very rarely paying her way, even when she had the money. She loved and left men, fell into a life of crime and then walked away, she spent time in a prison, a venereal disease hospital, a brothel, and working in an abortion clinic. There are very few aspects of underground life that she does not delve into.
The most amazing thing about Sister of the Road is that for the majority of the book, it remains uplifting even in the midst of what might what be taken to be very dark circumstances. The only times Bertha really gives over into depression is when someone she loves dies. The rest of the time she plows ahead with a matter of fact optimism, determined to make the best of everything. Determined to never think ill of her fellow wanderers, she seeks out the motivations of why people do the things that they do. Here is where the reader truly benefits from Dr. Reitman's hundreds of interviews, as he illuminates how people come to be the people they are, and why they believe what they profess to believe.
Conversely, perhaps the greatest weakness of this book is simply the amount of time that has passed since it was written. Trains are no longer as commonly used as a method of transportation as they once were, and when the book describes the various places a hobo could ride on a train, I only rarely could understand what they were talking about. These distinctions were often important, as certain ways of riding the train were much more dangerous than others, and it would have been nice to be able to picture them as I read.
Such minor complaints aside, Sister of the Road truly is an amazing novel. It is an autobiography not of a single woman, but of thousands of men and women who dropped out of the dominant culture to live life on different terms. These are lives and stories rarely told in history texts, and that's exactly what makes this book so valuable.
I am one of those people who always wants to know whether a movie, book, or story is true. It's not so much that I think true stories are somehow better than fiction, but that I appreciate them differently. For instance, I adore the novel Jane Eyre and am not in the least bit disturbed that there is no way it could be a true story, yet the movie Erin Brockovich would not be nearly so charming if it were not true. That said, when I picked up Sister of the Road - The Autobiography of Boxcar Bertha in the bookstore, I knew I had to read it. Described as the autobiography of a hobo "free-thinking and free-loving" woman in the early twentieth century, it sounded radical and inspiring. And the book was radical and inspiring, right up until the afterward, where it was confessed that Sister of the Road was not, in fact, an autobiography, but rather a work of fiction. Let's just say that I was very annoyed.
I still think that Sister of the Road is an interesting story and one worth reading. However, I would be much more interesting in reading the life story of the man who wrote it. Dr. Ben Reitman was a hobo, a writer, a doctor, an agitator, an educator, a lover of Emma Goldman and a distributor of birth control information at a time when such doing so was illegal and highly dangerous. Now that would be an interesting story.
But back to the book at hand. Once I recovered from my peevishness at being duped, I realized that Sister of the Road really did not lose much for not being literally true. After all, Reitman based this book largely on three women that he knew, as well as material from hundreds of conversations he had with various tramps, hoboes, and other people on the road throughout the course of his life. It remains a provocative glimpse into a way of life and an entire culture that most people were never aware existed.
Boxcar Bertha grew up in communes, railway yards, and in hobo hotels that her mother, who both practiced and preached free-love, operated. Her education was primarily one of speaking with vagrants, socialist, and activists of all kinds. By the time she was sixteen, she was criss-crossing the country on trains, mostly by hoboing, very rarely paying her way, even when she had the money. She loved and left men, fell into a life of crime and then walked away, she spent time in a prison, a venereal disease hospital, a brothel, and working in an abortion clinic. There are very few aspects of underground life that she does not delve into.
The most amazing thing about Sister of the Road is that for the majority of the book, it remains uplifting even in the midst of what might what be taken to be very dark circumstances. The only times Bertha really gives over into depression is when someone she loves dies. The rest of the time she plows ahead with a matter of fact optimism, determined to make the best of everything. Determined to never think ill of her fellow wanderers, she seeks out the motivations of why people do the things that they do. Here is where the reader truly benefits from Dr. Reitman's hundreds of interviews, as he illuminates how people come to be the people they are, and why they believe what they profess to believe.
Conversely, perhaps the greatest weakness of this book is simply the amount of time that has passed since it was written. Trains are no longer as commonly used as a method of transportation as they once were, and when the book describes the various places a hobo could ride on a train, I only rarely could understand what they were talking about. These distinctions were often important, as certain ways of riding the train were much more dangerous than others, and it would have been nice to be able to picture them as I read.
Such minor complaints aside, Sister of the Road truly is an amazing novel. It is an autobiography not of a single woman, but of thousands of men and women who dropped out of the dominant culture to live life on different terms. These are lives and stories rarely told in history texts, and that's exactly what makes this book so valuable.
June 11, 2023
An artifact of American alternative writing
I decided to seek out one of the many editions of "Boxcar Bertha," the novel on which Martin Scorsese based his early shoestring movie with Barbara Hershey and David Carradine, after learning that there was such a book some months ago here on Goodreads. Since I'm a lifelong journalist, I was fascinated by what claimed to be an original oral history of a feminist "Hobo." However, as it turns out this is not a factual account at all. In fact, it's a narrative written by the infamously progressive Ben Reitman (1879-1943). Reitman was a real historical figure who styled himself as a physician to the poor and sometimes was known as the "Hobo doctor."
The deeper I dug into the factual background behind this manuscript, I found that Reitman eventually did admit that this book was his fictionalized story, not an actual oral history. He claimed to have based this account on a number of women he had known in the Hobo worlds in which he moved.
So, now, I realize this book, which often was marketed over the decades as a shockingly honest book about sexuality and poverty, really is more of an example of propaganda by Reitman for his views about the world and his hopes for an idealistic Hobo community. Some early editions screamed from the front cover (bright red in one edition) that this was an "uncensored" book. Before any readers of this review leap to the conclusion that this is erotic literature, however, that's certainly not the case. And, in fact, it's one of the most deeply troubling aspects of this book. Reitman celebrates the fact that his Boxcar Bertha grew up quite healthy and happy, even though she was repeatedly abused by a much older man while she was underage. In the book, she does not even regard this as abuse. In Reitman's fantasy, she welcomes this and it's part of her healthy upbringing.
So, at this point, do you see why I'm giving this 1 star? Now that it's clear this book is Reitman's fantasy about women Hoboes, it becomes a deeply troubling manuscript.
Plus, Reitman's narrative is full of factual holes that even a little research reveals as pure fiction. One big example: Because Reitman was, indeed, involved in helping to set up a Hobo College in Chicago (what we might call today a shelter for people without homes), Reitman fantasizes in this novel that these Hobo Colleges had been set up all across America. There's a scene in which Bertha visits a Hobo College that operates like a research library run by Hoboes themselves. In fact, that particular center Reitman describes Bertha visiting never existed.
Because Reitman clearly is an unreliable narrator and also seems to be far more interested in promoting his own sexual fantasies, I wound up deeply disappointed with this book and particularly because Reitman seems be rationalizing under-age relationships with older men, I have to give it 1 star and write up this review warning others about what I think of, now, as a troubling text.
Please do not misunderstand. I am a staunch advocate of free speech and Reitman did, indeed, write this book. I can see this book having value in research or college courses exploring early alternative movements in which Reitman was active. I'm not suggesting the book be banned. I've simply concluded for myself that it's a different kind of historical artifact than I thought it was when I bought a used copy and began reading.
I decided to seek out one of the many editions of "Boxcar Bertha," the novel on which Martin Scorsese based his early shoestring movie with Barbara Hershey and David Carradine, after learning that there was such a book some months ago here on Goodreads. Since I'm a lifelong journalist, I was fascinated by what claimed to be an original oral history of a feminist "Hobo." However, as it turns out this is not a factual account at all. In fact, it's a narrative written by the infamously progressive Ben Reitman (1879-1943). Reitman was a real historical figure who styled himself as a physician to the poor and sometimes was known as the "Hobo doctor."
The deeper I dug into the factual background behind this manuscript, I found that Reitman eventually did admit that this book was his fictionalized story, not an actual oral history. He claimed to have based this account on a number of women he had known in the Hobo worlds in which he moved.
So, now, I realize this book, which often was marketed over the decades as a shockingly honest book about sexuality and poverty, really is more of an example of propaganda by Reitman for his views about the world and his hopes for an idealistic Hobo community. Some early editions screamed from the front cover (bright red in one edition) that this was an "uncensored" book. Before any readers of this review leap to the conclusion that this is erotic literature, however, that's certainly not the case. And, in fact, it's one of the most deeply troubling aspects of this book. Reitman celebrates the fact that his Boxcar Bertha grew up quite healthy and happy, even though she was repeatedly abused by a much older man while she was underage. In the book, she does not even regard this as abuse. In Reitman's fantasy, she welcomes this and it's part of her healthy upbringing.
So, at this point, do you see why I'm giving this 1 star? Now that it's clear this book is Reitman's fantasy about women Hoboes, it becomes a deeply troubling manuscript.
Plus, Reitman's narrative is full of factual holes that even a little research reveals as pure fiction. One big example: Because Reitman was, indeed, involved in helping to set up a Hobo College in Chicago (what we might call today a shelter for people without homes), Reitman fantasizes in this novel that these Hobo Colleges had been set up all across America. There's a scene in which Bertha visits a Hobo College that operates like a research library run by Hoboes themselves. In fact, that particular center Reitman describes Bertha visiting never existed.
Because Reitman clearly is an unreliable narrator and also seems to be far more interested in promoting his own sexual fantasies, I wound up deeply disappointed with this book and particularly because Reitman seems be rationalizing under-age relationships with older men, I have to give it 1 star and write up this review warning others about what I think of, now, as a troubling text.
Please do not misunderstand. I am a staunch advocate of free speech and Reitman did, indeed, write this book. I can see this book having value in research or college courses exploring early alternative movements in which Reitman was active. I'm not suggesting the book be banned. I've simply concluded for myself that it's a different kind of historical artifact than I thought it was when I bought a used copy and began reading.
July 23, 2008
The female "You Can't Win," sort of. Belongs on the top shelf of your Hobo Studies collection, or at least of mine.
February 26, 2020
Back in the days when there were Drive-in movie theaters, after the main show, you needed filler for the 2nd or even 3rd feature. Bloody, action packed, bank robbing female hobo during the Great Depression? ‘Boxcar Bertha’ was a perfect flic for that role and my introduction to her tale. You may even end up seeing it several times over a summer of movie going.
The movie had the alluring Barbara Hershey playing “Boxie”, while in the book, Boxie says all the men describe her as a “Truck Horse”. So there’s not much similarity between the book & the movie and it turns out there is not much reality in the book either.
Author, Medical Dr Reitman, was at times a hobo himself and championed many health causes for the down and out in the 1920s and 1930s. To further these causes he put together this compilation of stories and called it an ‘Autobiography of Bertha Thompson’, originally ‘Sister of the Road’, hobo slang for well, female hobo and published it in 1937.
Female hoboes were rare, so that added to the attention the book received, along with the titilation factor of a woman in a risky man’s world out on the tracks. Toss in the fact that many of the hoboes, we would generally call homeless nowadays, have to exist by stealing and scamming the public and you have a compelling tale. .
The book was used for years as a sociological study before it was discredited. Undoubtedly though some of the tales are true, however fashioned to support the author’s causes. I found it an entertaining, compelling read especially as many of the hoboes were out there by choice, just not wanting to deal with society, answering that lonesome whistle blow. It is a look into a world one hopes to never have to enter.
The movie had the alluring Barbara Hershey playing “Boxie”, while in the book, Boxie says all the men describe her as a “Truck Horse”. So there’s not much similarity between the book & the movie and it turns out there is not much reality in the book either.
Author, Medical Dr Reitman, was at times a hobo himself and championed many health causes for the down and out in the 1920s and 1930s. To further these causes he put together this compilation of stories and called it an ‘Autobiography of Bertha Thompson’, originally ‘Sister of the Road’, hobo slang for well, female hobo and published it in 1937.
Female hoboes were rare, so that added to the attention the book received, along with the titilation factor of a woman in a risky man’s world out on the tracks. Toss in the fact that many of the hoboes, we would generally call homeless nowadays, have to exist by stealing and scamming the public and you have a compelling tale. .
The book was used for years as a sociological study before it was discredited. Undoubtedly though some of the tales are true, however fashioned to support the author’s causes. I found it an entertaining, compelling read especially as many of the hoboes were out there by choice, just not wanting to deal with society, answering that lonesome whistle blow. It is a look into a world one hopes to never have to enter.
June 21, 2018
A wild, whirlwind tour through early 20th century radicalism, criminality, and hobo living. Though the protagonist is clearly fictional, the world she lives in rings true... at least based on what I know from history books and old movies. And speaking of old movies, Reitman isn't much physical description, so I'd advise watching some period cinema on YouTube before reading to better imagine the scenery. Even without visuals the boxcar rides are thrilling, the crime is horrifying, the poverty is heartbreaking, and the injustices are appalling. The most valuable thing about the book, to my mind, is how it clearly demonstrates the emancipated frame of mind is not a modern invention. Long before the Beats and Hippies there were Free Spirits who defied bourgeois convention to live imaginatively and adventurously.
November 24, 2025
ngl, Im conflicted.
To begin with, I only learned that Bertha was not a real person upon reading the afterword. on the one hand, i feel deceived, but on the other, and the afterword puts this aptly; when reading this book, we read “the story of thousands upon thousands who lived this life, who traveled, who struggled and let experience teach them”. So it doesn’t matter that Bertha isn’t real, for she very well could be. And I am all for an allegory, I just wish I knew it was an allegory.
Aside from this recent revelation, I found this book to be remarkably revealing, and humanizing, toward the lives of the underworld - the anarchists, the prostitutes, the criminals, and the homeless - who rarely get to tell their own story. The author (who is not Bertha) writes from his experiences with these characters, giving all of these humans the attention they deserve with not a speck of judgement. Inspiring.
Scorcese movie next. Check out my review on letterboxed
To begin with, I only learned that Bertha was not a real person upon reading the afterword. on the one hand, i feel deceived, but on the other, and the afterword puts this aptly; when reading this book, we read “the story of thousands upon thousands who lived this life, who traveled, who struggled and let experience teach them”. So it doesn’t matter that Bertha isn’t real, for she very well could be. And I am all for an allegory, I just wish I knew it was an allegory.
Aside from this recent revelation, I found this book to be remarkably revealing, and humanizing, toward the lives of the underworld - the anarchists, the prostitutes, the criminals, and the homeless - who rarely get to tell their own story. The author (who is not Bertha) writes from his experiences with these characters, giving all of these humans the attention they deserve with not a speck of judgement. Inspiring.
Scorcese movie next. Check out my review on letterboxed
January 17, 2017
This memoir of Boxcar Bertha chronicles her family, friends, and her extensively traveled life. As promised on the cover, it is frank and includes intimate facts about a woman hobo's methods and habits; but much like its subject, it's a bit rough and tumble. I had respect for Bertha and her free-thinking family of progressive socialists, because despite their untraditional nomadic way of life they valued education and parented valiantly - until I got to page 134, when Bertha says to herself in a prison hospital (after becoming a prostitute in order to gain that experience), "Me? Bertha Thompson, Mother Thompson's daughter? I couldn't have syphilis! I couldn't be pregnant! I knew about birth control. The doctor must be mistaken. I couldn't have gonorrhea! This must be a joke, I told myself. I'm Box Car Bertha! I've lived through everything. I'm not a whore. I'm not the kind of woman to whom these things happen!"
From that point on Bertha's self-righteousness seemed misguided to me, as she was fired for not admitting to having STDs at one place, and then fired for not admitting to a criminal record at the next one. Even though I didn't really buy the author's voice as that of a woman, I am intrigued by the Nabat series it belongs to, "dedicated to reprinting memoirs of truly interesting and meaningful lives and real adventures on the margins of what Kenneth Rexroth called 'the social lie'."
Bertha's book was first published in 1937, imploring "who can remain quiet and peace-loving and be content just to vote. Even now in these deadly days of depression, all we have out of the chaos is the rich growing richer and more powerful and more arrogant and the bulk of the poor growing more submissive and adapting themselves by force to a lower scale of living!" That rings so true today in 2017, it gives me chills.
From that point on Bertha's self-righteousness seemed misguided to me, as she was fired for not admitting to having STDs at one place, and then fired for not admitting to a criminal record at the next one. Even though I didn't really buy the author's voice as that of a woman, I am intrigued by the Nabat series it belongs to, "dedicated to reprinting memoirs of truly interesting and meaningful lives and real adventures on the margins of what Kenneth Rexroth called 'the social lie'."
Bertha's book was first published in 1937, imploring "who can remain quiet and peace-loving and be content just to vote. Even now in these deadly days of depression, all we have out of the chaos is the rich growing richer and more powerful and more arrogant and the bulk of the poor growing more submissive and adapting themselves by force to a lower scale of living!" That rings so true today in 2017, it gives me chills.
January 31, 2024
Another recommendation from Andy!
It is such a fascinating read. I especially love how it paints an authentic gritty picture without getting you down in the dumps OR overly romanticizing it and drawing you into the lifestyle of a promiscuous hobo.
I was disappointed to find out that it's a work of fiction and not a true autobiographical. Andy too wasn't aware of that. Although certain details do bely that it was partially an idealistic account.
I especially LOVED the but about there being sewing cooperatives in the women's shelters. Would love to see this happen in real life.
It is such a fascinating read. I especially love how it paints an authentic gritty picture without getting you down in the dumps OR overly romanticizing it and drawing you into the lifestyle of a promiscuous hobo.
I was disappointed to find out that it's a work of fiction and not a true autobiographical. Andy too wasn't aware of that. Although certain details do bely that it was partially an idealistic account.
I especially LOVED the but about there being sewing cooperatives in the women's shelters. Would love to see this happen in real life.
October 5, 2014
No doubt the most famous book on American wanderlust was written by Jack Kerouac, who might have had a case of dromomania, that is, a psychological need to wander without real purpose or intention, as in (utilizing the lexicon of the times) “just for kicks.” America has always been a huge land, seemingly endless, and there is nothing more American than reinventing oneself in a new town, either legally or dubiously, and starting over. Dromomania is embedded in American DNA, striking the odd native child and setting him or her on a journey-- all Kerouac did was place our cultural pastime in a mythical, romantic context accessible to any sort of dreamer, the young, the penniless, the damned.
Little known today, Boxcar Bertha is the autobiography of one Bertha Thompson, her life story as told to and recorded by Dr. Ben Reitman. Bertha is a plainspoken narrator with immense curiosity, a terrific sense of adventure, and deep roots in the social justice moments in the first half of the 20th century, involving herself mostly in women's issues and the labor movement. She criss-crossed the country, a la Kerouac, but instead of riding shotgun with a madcap pill-popping drag-racing pothead, did most of her traveling hopping freight cars, sometimes alone, often partnered up with a social agitator beau, or conspiring among other “sisters of the road.” (Last night I watched the Martin Scorsese adaptation of her life's testimony, Boxcar Bertha, from 1972 and starring Barbara Hershey as Bertha-- I was shocked at the fictional liberties the filmmakers pursued, basically ripping off Bonnie and Clyde, turning Bertha into a hayseed moll in a bankrobbing Depression-era gang, ignoring the progressive do-right spirit that marks Bertha as a genuinely selfless champion of workers' and especially women's rights.)
This was in the 1920s and 1930s, a period of labor “agitation,” when workers often martyred themselves against police and a punitive justice system so that future generations might have better contractual rights, fairer pay, insurance benefits, and a decent pension. Bertha participated in these movements firsthand, but her real gift was her engaging, disarming personality, and either with a steeltrap memory or assiduous notetaking, became a reservoir of anecdotal biographies of wandering women from all kinds of socio-economic backgrounds. The odd (or dangerous) jobs aside, Bertha worked with researchers, incorporating her firsthand knowledge of the hardships of the road and her encounters there, compiling them into an account of anthropological provenance-- a 35-page appendix presents Bertha's findings on the sociological factors inspiring women to live nomadically, among them the specific differentiation between “hoboes” and “bums” (the former looking for work, the latter all-around ne'er-do-wells).
There is no shortage of characters coming into Bertha's life on her travels-- hopheads, murderers, anarchists, lunatics, punks, and wobblies. She wanders from rustic communes to firebrand union halls, runs with a Midwestern gang of thieves and parties with lesbians, poets, and “spittoon philosophers” in Greenwich Village. In New York City she encounters her father, a middle-aged philanderer running an unsuccessful radical bookshop. It is her first time meeting this wayward man, whom she chastises for failing to take on his parental duties. Defending himself, he identifies two different kinds of men, “'the uterine type'... the good father, home lover, monogamist” and the “phallic type” who “needs women. Any women would do.” He goes on: “there are no solutions to the problems of life. There are no goals. You just go on living and loving and doing the best or the worst you can.”
As much as Baby Boomers like to take credit for the sixties-era sexual revolution, all they'd really done is enjoy mainstream social acceptance of a promiscuous lifestyle. And though Bertha enjoyed numerous partners in “free love” hook-ups, she'd learned early on from her mother that the human body was not a vehicle for sin, but an instrument of pleasure, sharing, in fact, sexual liaisons with men who'd loved her mother. But it is one thing to have an open attitude towards sex, a whole other to be pimped out to “Johns,” which is something Bertha does in order to better understand this underground lifestyle. In a Chicago whorehouse, she turns forty tricks a day, seven days a week, sleeping with several thousand men in six weeks. Nearly all her money is confiscated by her “man,” she contracts syphilis and gonorrhea as well as becomes pregnant! She bears this child of an unknowable father, and her wayfaring instinct stronger than her maternal one, she makes the same choice of freedom over duty that her father had, dropping off her newborn daughter with her mother in a Seattle commune and hitting the road: “There's something constantly itching in my soul that only the road and the box cars can satisfy. Jobs, lovers, a child-- don't seem to be able to curb my wanderlust.” The road is a long one, but eventually for nearly all of us, it has a destination, even for a vagabond as mobile as Boxcar Bertha. But that tired platitude about the journey is true: it really does matter how you get there, and it was the lives of women like Bertha Thompson's that, cumulatively, have made the world a better, freer, more compassionate place.
March 14, 2018
This is in fact a work of fiction, presented as an autobiography. The main character is an amalgamation of several hobo women that the author had met and interviewed over the years. The main character is an unconvincing personality who takes to the hobo lifestyle to experience everything she can of the world. Being raised by her mother to believe in free love and communism (though that word is not actually used), she has an odyssey through America as a tramp.
While the story of female hobos was not often discussed in the literature of the time, the impact of the realities of life for them (prostitution, the possibilities of rape, etc.) is minimalized by the obvious fact that the author is pushing an agenda. He was a devout communist/anarchist and if you had only read his account you could easily believe that the whole of the hobo community was made up entirely of freewheeling labor union communists, struggling against religion and society, trying desperately to redefine dignity in existence. That every woman on the road had chosen to be there, was revolted by marriage, and an advocate of “free love”. That they were all one happy family, going to lectures at the International Workers of the World clubs, swinging their legs off of edge of speeding trains, and singing protest songs.
But, as we have seen in the autobiographies of Jim Tully and Carl Panzram, this was not the case. While it is true that a leftist agenda had been infused in the poorer sections of the United States populace in the 1930s, a natural result of the Great Depression, it was not as uniform as the author represents. Also it must be noted that once the depression was over and many of those people gained jobs, they felt their need for communism slip away.
He does offer us many case histories of the actual women hobos at the time and gives us snippets of their background. He collected these working in the public sector for relief agencies and the Chicago Society for the Prevention of Venereal Disease. And several historical figures from the underbelly of American life and the labor struggle may have been forgotten had they not been included in the text.
It is interesting that many of the things the author advocates for have come into being. The most obvious one is abortion. Reitman himself was an abortionist and perform many of the then illegal operations (according to him) as he offered free services to the poor, hobos, and prostitutes. The other is birth control and the distribution of methods of it, which also was outlawed at that time (except for the rhythm method). The author had previously served six months in prison for advocating and distributing pamphlets on birth control. In fact his life story is much more interesting that the book he wrote.
However the author constantly returns to the subject of free love and the idea that marriage was slavery for women. One of the characters stating that, “If I had a baby, I would feel free to dash its brains out.” He goes into so much detail in fact that it seems like fantasy wish fulfillment. The main character swaps lovers easily, sharing one with her sister and mother, happily works as a prostitute giving most of her money to a pimp (she just wanted “the experience”), contracts syphilis and gonorrhea, but it “doesn’t bother her too much”, and so on. While the ideas and descriptions of women working as prostitutes might have been shocking in 1937, it is almost mundane nowadays. Fifty Shades of Grey having inured us to many of these ideas. I often reflect how people back in the day would react to that text.
March 27, 2016
Reitman, the longtime partner of Emma Goldman, was a hobo himself, and this novel, purporting to be the autobiography of the fictional Boxcar Bertha but actually a composite of several women and men (including Reitman himself), is dripping with authenticity. Several real-life radicals and anarchists make appearances and are mentioned throughout the book. Some of the oral histories recorded by Bertha read as if they were taken from real people Reitman met in his hobo days. Even the locales Bertha visits are real (relief stations, hospitals, co-op colonies, transient camps, Hobo College, etc.). I spent a great deal of time googling information on these places to learn more about them. (The Chicago Woman's Shelter on Ashland and Adams, for example, remains a Salvation Army Family Case center across from a church.)
Very few books offer readers such unflinching access to the downtrodden and outcasts in Depression-era America. Reitman doesn't judge or preach. He merely gives us the stories of hobos (transients looking for work), tramps (those without money who tramp around for excitement or adventure), bums (those addicted to drugs and alcohol who have lost all respectability), con artists, grifters, prostitutes, pimps, the honest unemployed on relief, anarchists, leftist radicals, blacks, free love advocates, migrant workers, Wobblies, the gay subculture, etc. Bertha has a desire to learn as much about each group as she can, which sometimes lands her in prison, giving an interesting look into the corrupt justice system. Perhaps the most fascinating section of the book is when Bertha becomes a prostitute. We see how the pimp lures women, how the house operates, how much (or little) the women make after the pay-offs, how the police accept graft or occasionally make raids, and what happens to the women who contract venereal disease.
Reitman offers honest and direct discussions of VD, birth control, and abortion, with Bertha working for awhile at an underground abortion clinic. We are not expected to sympathize or even like all the characters we meet. Indeed, many characters we encounter understand that they are immoral or that their choices are self-made. However, we do begin to understand the environment that helps to foster such behavior and the way in which the United States' refusal to address everything from family planning to women's rights to labor strife creates an inescapable cycle for those born into poverty and the transient lifestyle in the 1920s and 30s.
Reitman's book is well worth a read to gain unforgettable perspective and insight into lives that are vastly different from our own.
Very few books offer readers such unflinching access to the downtrodden and outcasts in Depression-era America. Reitman doesn't judge or preach. He merely gives us the stories of hobos (transients looking for work), tramps (those without money who tramp around for excitement or adventure), bums (those addicted to drugs and alcohol who have lost all respectability), con artists, grifters, prostitutes, pimps, the honest unemployed on relief, anarchists, leftist radicals, blacks, free love advocates, migrant workers, Wobblies, the gay subculture, etc. Bertha has a desire to learn as much about each group as she can, which sometimes lands her in prison, giving an interesting look into the corrupt justice system. Perhaps the most fascinating section of the book is when Bertha becomes a prostitute. We see how the pimp lures women, how the house operates, how much (or little) the women make after the pay-offs, how the police accept graft or occasionally make raids, and what happens to the women who contract venereal disease.
Reitman offers honest and direct discussions of VD, birth control, and abortion, with Bertha working for awhile at an underground abortion clinic. We are not expected to sympathize or even like all the characters we meet. Indeed, many characters we encounter understand that they are immoral or that their choices are self-made. However, we do begin to understand the environment that helps to foster such behavior and the way in which the United States' refusal to address everything from family planning to women's rights to labor strife creates an inescapable cycle for those born into poverty and the transient lifestyle in the 1920s and 30s.
Reitman's book is well worth a read to gain unforgettable perspective and insight into lives that are vastly different from our own.
April 13, 2023
This is not an autobiography of a woman named Boxcar Bertha, but rather Dr. Ben Reitman's fantasy of what it was like for women "hoboes" or transients in the early decades of the 1900s. He tramped himself from an early age, so it's not like the book is completely bogus, but his male privilege and undying belief that "free love" would save society lead him to make some rather amusing assumptions about what it would be like to be a prostitute or ride the rails for the women he became acquainted with. However, the book is an interesting picture of homelessness and transience at the time, along with the heady beliefs of Anarchists of the day and how they thought homelessness could be "solved." His connections to the women through being an abortionist, dispensing birth control and treating STDs give him a unique perspective (though yes, naive too).
February 20, 2016
Box-Car Bertha: An Autobiography as told to Dr. Ben L. Reitman (Amok Press 1988) (305.5). Box-Car Bertha was one of the original woman hoboes during the Great Depression. As Bertha explains, she was also an unrepentant prostitute, an unmarried mother, and a single parent at a time when these were not complimentary terms. She was likely also fictional, according to current theory. Author Ben L. Reitman was an actual medical doctor in Chicago who treated venereal diseases and performed abortions for the lowest of the bowery bums; he was known for treating his patients with respect and compassion. He worked tirelessly serving the under-served and the dispossessed, unless he had locked up his medical office and jumped aboard a freight train for an extended run. This book has as an appendix Reitman's statistical analysis of how these people could be better served. It's an interesting manifesto. My rating: 7/10, finished 2/19/16.
September 15, 2009
this is the story of a freewheeling anarchist lady hobo who travels the country in the 1920's and 30's, hanging out with all sorts of radicals and getting into all sorts of adventures. this book was really interesting and easy-to-read, although i suspect it's actually fiction by ben reitman & not an autobiography. it was really inspiring & fun. i would have given it four stars but i was turned off by all the homophobia! every other group of weirdoes is treated with love except for the gays--every chance the "author", or her friends, has to bash gay people, they do. and it sucks. (one of them says, mysteriously, "lesbians are god's stepchildren." that's supposed to be an insult. what the fuck???!!
May 6, 2018
Watch out! This book is not well-written. Maybe it's because when Ben Reitman penned this tome language was used in different ways, but more so because it becomes fairly obvious very quickly that Bertha is not a real person; she's a collection of stories that are designed to shock the conventional expectations of the time. Liberal in everything from sex to politics, Bertha is a metaphor for how things should be, how open-minded people should act. It's a rollicking ride, don't get me wrong, but there's too much stuff crammed into Bertha's life. It's a sociological document, not a historical one. Important from that perspective.
August 7, 2007
This book was such an inspiration to me. It is still one of my favorites. Although it was purported to be one woman named Boxcar Bertha,it is an amalgamation of many strong, radical women that Dr. Ben Reitman, the radical doctor of prostitutes, met over many years in the early 20th century. It is the story of hobos, prostitutes, labor organizers, and con artists doing what they could to survive in America.
December 27, 2007
NABAT finally makes it clear that his book is a work of fiction - based on true stories as told to or experienced by Dr Reitman. I read this book while researching my own book regarding my great-aunt who was a female hobo for 15 months in 1925. "Boxcar Bertha" is set in the 1930s. Her "experience" is dramatically different from that of my great-aunt but none-the-less interesting. I beleive this book would appeal more to the student of sociology than an historian.
September 1, 2014
This is a very fun read. As I understand it, it was sold as a memoir, but later revealed to be fiction. That controversy doesn't diminish the story. Published in 1937, it's very readable, and filled with authentic details. My copy (from 1937) has an appendix with statistics and anecdotal information about homelessness and "radicals" in the 1930s.
March 24, 2018
Not really an autobiography, which is the clue given that it was “written by” someone else. They believe Boxcar Bertha was either based on someone Reitman knew or a conglomeration of the many hobos he met.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 2, 2011
May or may not be true but it's still a damn fine page turner. This book was another of my late night reads at the laundromat.
December 17, 2022
In the afterword of Boxcar Bertha, the publisher confesses that it is a work of fiction. “This,” he asserts, “takes nothing away from the book as far as we’re concerned.” It doesn’t?! Despite the fact that the book is billed as an autobiography and reads as one up until the last page of the story?
What kind of sociopaths do they have working at AK Press?
The book has other problems besides the fundamental deception at its core. For one, it relies too heavily on salaciousness and taboo-breaking in order to distract from its defects and inconsistencies. That wouldn’t be such a problem if the taboos of yesteryear were the same ones as today. Then at least, we would be too busy blushing to notice that Bertha is basically a cipher for its author’s ideas on issues ranging from feminism to prison reform.
What’s the old Orwell line, the feeling he got from watching that speaker who got up on the soapbox to work up a great head of steam? “One got the sense that if they sliced him in half, he would be revealed not to be viscera and bone, but ideology down to the core.” Something like that.
Ben Reitman (the real author) has his own idiosyncratic (re: self-serving) ideas about free love, money, a parent’s responsibility to a child, and the world’s great religions. He shares them through the vessel of Boxcar Bertha, who hops from train to train and bed to bed, picking up lovers and various doses of disease as she goes. At one point she accidentally gets pregnant and gives birth to a child. The protagonist has her major epiphany at this point, realizing that she would rather keep at the picaresque life than settle down and raise her daughter.
The end.
Aside from a handful of vignettes that do a good job of establishing mood in Depression-era jailhouses, bordellos, and itinerant worker camps, there’s not much here. The main takeaway is that those possessed of fervid political conviction are usually using it to fill some kind of void at their center. There’s a lot of narcissism in the men claiming they only want to be another face in the crowd manning the means of production alongside their comrades.
No photos or illustrations, although in the afterword we also learn than previous editions came with various charts containing stats on everything from homelessness to VD.
What kind of sociopaths do they have working at AK Press?
The book has other problems besides the fundamental deception at its core. For one, it relies too heavily on salaciousness and taboo-breaking in order to distract from its defects and inconsistencies. That wouldn’t be such a problem if the taboos of yesteryear were the same ones as today. Then at least, we would be too busy blushing to notice that Bertha is basically a cipher for its author’s ideas on issues ranging from feminism to prison reform.
What’s the old Orwell line, the feeling he got from watching that speaker who got up on the soapbox to work up a great head of steam? “One got the sense that if they sliced him in half, he would be revealed not to be viscera and bone, but ideology down to the core.” Something like that.
Ben Reitman (the real author) has his own idiosyncratic (re: self-serving) ideas about free love, money, a parent’s responsibility to a child, and the world’s great religions. He shares them through the vessel of Boxcar Bertha, who hops from train to train and bed to bed, picking up lovers and various doses of disease as she goes. At one point she accidentally gets pregnant and gives birth to a child. The protagonist has her major epiphany at this point, realizing that she would rather keep at the picaresque life than settle down and raise her daughter.
The end.
Aside from a handful of vignettes that do a good job of establishing mood in Depression-era jailhouses, bordellos, and itinerant worker camps, there’s not much here. The main takeaway is that those possessed of fervid political conviction are usually using it to fill some kind of void at their center. There’s a lot of narcissism in the men claiming they only want to be another face in the crowd manning the means of production alongside their comrades.
No photos or illustrations, although in the afterword we also learn than previous editions came with various charts containing stats on everything from homelessness to VD.
February 1, 2024
“Boxcar Bertha is the story of a shrouded world and its people, a battered nobility of misfits and unfits, many of whom had paid a grim price for failure. For Reitman this world was not a testament to degradation but a revelation of humanity. Behind every lined face at a soup kitchen, every stiff sprawled in a ten-cent flophouse, and every rouge-smeared hooker lay a deeper story of pain and courage and perseverance. The world of the alley and gutter was also a world of idealism and dreams, of protest, a place where conformity cringed, where people dared to take on the dangerous and forbidden.”
-Roger A. Bruns
-Roger A. Bruns
April 2, 2019
I believed everything written. I even went and researched what happened to Baby. Now I realize it was a novel. Ben got me. Now I will move on. Excellent read. I already knew that the poor are some of the deepest thinkers and philosophers. I respect their tenacity, knowledge, and intelligence. I am so ignorant as compared to them. I like their principle of solidarity. I know that I would not survive in that world.
Read
June 28, 2020I could not live like this ... but I have some Aunts that could
November 28, 2021
Hoy traigo la reseña de «Boxcar Bertha», de Ben Reitman, novela que me ha flipado y que, cuando supe de ella, me costaba entender cómo no la había leído antes. Una historia que fue escrita en 1937, cuya protagonista es una mujer hobo y que habla de trotamundos y buscavidas. ¿Cómo podía ser que no supiera nada de ella? Pues muy fácil, porque hasta que en 2014 la publicó Pepitas de Calabaza (con traducción de Diego Luis Sanromán) no estaba en castellano.
Esta historia cuenta la vida de Bertha Thompson, personaje ficticio a través de cuya «autobiografía» Reitman retrata el mundo de la Hobohemia como el testigo, estudioso y «rey de los hobos» que fue. Habrá quien a estas alturas esté diciendo: vale, ¿pero qué es eso de los hobos? Así es como se llamaba a aquellas personas que, a principios del siglo XX, se trasladaban (y vivían, prácticamente) como polizones en vagones de mercancías. La mayor parte eran migrantes en busca de trabajo. A casi todos, las circunstancias (la necesidad) les llevaron a vivir así, pero otros enaltecían este modo de vida, como una forma de libertad elegida. Este sería el caso de Bertha: una hermana de la carretera.
Aunque a lo largo de la historia hay muchas situaciones bastante crudas y miserables, la intención de Reitman apunta al bien común (Do the right thing). En ese aspecto (y otros tantos) me recuerda a las novelas de Iceberg Slim o a «Pauline: La madama de Clay Street». También debo destacar tanto el prólogo como el epílogo que abrazan la novela, ambos de Laurent Lapierre. Complementos perfectos.
He disfrutado como una enana leyéndolo, todo el rato pensaba: ¿pero cómo no leí esto cuando leía a los beatniks?, esta piba sí que es «real» (sin serlo).
«—¡Que se vaya al infierno esta sociedad! [...] Si solo para existir tenemos que convertirnos en ladrones, en maleantes, en seres débiles, en esclavos, ¡deberíamos encontrar el modo de destruirla! ¿Quién puede quedarse tranquilo y en paz y contentarse solo con votar?»
Reseña completa y más info en https://denmeunpapelillo.net/boxcar-b...
Esta historia cuenta la vida de Bertha Thompson, personaje ficticio a través de cuya «autobiografía» Reitman retrata el mundo de la Hobohemia como el testigo, estudioso y «rey de los hobos» que fue. Habrá quien a estas alturas esté diciendo: vale, ¿pero qué es eso de los hobos? Así es como se llamaba a aquellas personas que, a principios del siglo XX, se trasladaban (y vivían, prácticamente) como polizones en vagones de mercancías. La mayor parte eran migrantes en busca de trabajo. A casi todos, las circunstancias (la necesidad) les llevaron a vivir así, pero otros enaltecían este modo de vida, como una forma de libertad elegida. Este sería el caso de Bertha: una hermana de la carretera.
Aunque a lo largo de la historia hay muchas situaciones bastante crudas y miserables, la intención de Reitman apunta al bien común (Do the right thing). En ese aspecto (y otros tantos) me recuerda a las novelas de Iceberg Slim o a «Pauline: La madama de Clay Street». También debo destacar tanto el prólogo como el epílogo que abrazan la novela, ambos de Laurent Lapierre. Complementos perfectos.
He disfrutado como una enana leyéndolo, todo el rato pensaba: ¿pero cómo no leí esto cuando leía a los beatniks?, esta piba sí que es «real» (sin serlo).
«—¡Que se vaya al infierno esta sociedad! [...] Si solo para existir tenemos que convertirnos en ladrones, en maleantes, en seres débiles, en esclavos, ¡deberíamos encontrar el modo de destruirla! ¿Quién puede quedarse tranquilo y en paz y contentarse solo con votar?»
Reseña completa y más info en https://denmeunpapelillo.net/boxcar-b...
August 2, 2024
This book has made me less afraid of the possibility of going homeless in uni
September 26, 2024
enjoyable read that left me wanting a little more.
September 21, 2008
Thsi one is gong on both my Fiction and Non-Fiction shelves. Technically it qualifies as a novel, but is a sociological study as well as Boxcar Bertha is a fictional character, an amalgam of probably three women early 20th Century radicals.
While Reitman paints a compelling picture of Bertha as a rider of the rails, anarchist, believer in free love, and philosopher-at-large, what is missing in the book is the desperation of the hobo life during the Great Depression. This clouds the narrative and creates an unreal story where even the visceral portions of the story (e.g., when she willingly allows herself to become a prostitute and contracts gonorrhea and gets pregnant) are told with a sterility and lack of emotion that detracts from the believability. So, too, are the matter of fact way in which she describes abandoning her infant daughter for a year.
That said, the author, Ben Reitman, is probably more interesting a character than his creation of Boxcar Bertha. He was a hobo, a doctor, a writer, the founder of the Chicago Hobo College, the lover and companion of Emma Goldman, an anarchist, and an agitator. He spent time in jail for being an early promoter of birth control for women (for sending "obscene materials" through the mail). And although this book was just okay, I've ordered a biography of the author - The DAMNDEST RADICAL: The Life and World of Ben Reitman, Chicago's Celebrated Social Reformer, Hobo King, and Whorehouse Physician - who sounds interesting as hell.
While Reitman paints a compelling picture of Bertha as a rider of the rails, anarchist, believer in free love, and philosopher-at-large, what is missing in the book is the desperation of the hobo life during the Great Depression. This clouds the narrative and creates an unreal story where even the visceral portions of the story (e.g., when she willingly allows herself to become a prostitute and contracts gonorrhea and gets pregnant) are told with a sterility and lack of emotion that detracts from the believability. So, too, are the matter of fact way in which she describes abandoning her infant daughter for a year.
That said, the author, Ben Reitman, is probably more interesting a character than his creation of Boxcar Bertha. He was a hobo, a doctor, a writer, the founder of the Chicago Hobo College, the lover and companion of Emma Goldman, an anarchist, and an agitator. He spent time in jail for being an early promoter of birth control for women (for sending "obscene materials" through the mail). And although this book was just okay, I've ordered a biography of the author - The DAMNDEST RADICAL: The Life and World of Ben Reitman, Chicago's Celebrated Social Reformer, Hobo King, and Whorehouse Physician - who sounds interesting as hell.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 12, 2009
Generations cycle through, cry through endless nights then molder in graves cold, but the habits & desires of society and individuals abide. So modern to believe we live like none before us, but the the things that don't change prove most uncanny & ubiquitous. I love Bertha for her honesty, I love hitchhiking, wide open spaces and concrete jungles. Found out that there's a movie loosely based on the book that came out in 1972 (two stars). One disappointing thing, however, was finding out at the end that it really was written by Ben Reitman, which I admit it says on the cover, but then it also calls itself an autobiography. Bertha still feels real to me, because I got to feeling her strong living as I read. Got the urge to ride the rails stronger than ever. My Uncle Tony used to ride the rails, got shot at by railroad dicks and everything, and I knew some folks in college that tried it, but somehow I missed the train. I'll wait until my kids grow just a little more first, but then it's motorcycle riding, hang gliding, and hobo vacation time, all the time.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 47 reviews