Lauren Spieller
The idea for Your Destination Is On The Left came to me shortly after I moved to New York in 2014. My husband and I had just hauled a trailer full of our stuff (okay, 75% were my books) all the way from California, and we were reeling from the trip. I was no stranger to long drives — I’d driven from the Midwest to CA and back at least four times during college and grad school — but the trip to New York was by far the longest.
I started to think about how hard it would be to drive for more than a week, which made me think of what is arguably the Original Road Trip — The Odyssey. (Yes, I’m a nerd, why do you ask?). Suddenly my mind was spinning. What if I did a retelling of The Odyssey, but instead of it being about Odysseus, it was about a Greek-American teenager named Dessa? And instead of traveling home after the fall of Troy, she was a nomad, living in an RV caravan, traveling the United States? And what if, instead of battling the monsters of mythology, she was forced to contend with her own personal demons? Before long I was rereading Homer’s epic and researching RV life, not to mention all the wonderful places along Route 66.
Three years later, the book has changed a lot — it’s really more inspired by The Odyssey than it is a retelling — but Homer’s story will always hold a special place in my heart!
I started to think about how hard it would be to drive for more than a week, which made me think of what is arguably the Original Road Trip — The Odyssey. (Yes, I’m a nerd, why do you ask?). Suddenly my mind was spinning. What if I did a retelling of The Odyssey, but instead of it being about Odysseus, it was about a Greek-American teenager named Dessa? And instead of traveling home after the fall of Troy, she was a nomad, living in an RV caravan, traveling the United States? And what if, instead of battling the monsters of mythology, she was forced to contend with her own personal demons? Before long I was rereading Homer’s epic and researching RV life, not to mention all the wonderful places along Route 66.
Three years later, the book has changed a lot — it’s really more inspired by The Odyssey than it is a retelling — but Homer’s story will always hold a special place in my heart!
About Goodreads Q&A
Ask and answer questions about books!
You can pose questions to the Goodreads community with Reader Q&A, or ask your favorite author a question with Ask the Author.
See Featured Authors Answering Questions
Learn more