ISBN: 978-1-57143-124-0
Journeying along the road traveled by Robert Louis Stevenson in his famed travelogue "Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes", fellow Scot Christopher Rush has written a modern classic. Accompanied by a donkey named Anatole, Rush tries not to make an ass out of himself on his journey from Le Monastier- Sur-Gazelle to St. Jean-Du-Gard. Realizing many of his worst fears, Rush is forced to ford raging streams buck naked, confronted by menacing hunters, lashed by torrential storms, often hungry and always directionally challenged. But with a little help from his friends Philip Larkin, Spanish thinker Miguel de Unamuno, Pablo Neruda and the Bard of Avon, the Scotsman turns these unfortunate events into a spiritual quest that raises the bar on travel writing. Following the agnostic Stevenson's path to a monastery where one of the monks resembles Buddy Holly, Rush discovers the "romance of those who are abroad in the black hours." A moving tribute to the memory of his late wife Patricia, To Travel Hopefully is Christopher Rush's poetic journey of the spirit through the south of France.
Praise for To Travel Hopefully
. . . “As a human document it astounds me . . . and I marvel at its literary qualities . . . Nothing can shadow the stature of this book or how enriched I’ve been by reading it, or my admiration for Christopher Rush’s achievement. It is to be treasured not just on the page, but in the heart — and spirit.” —Stewart Conn, Poet Laureate of Scotland
“An inspired Mozartian requiem, beautiful and terrible, wonderful and awful . . . As powerful a piece of writing as you are likely to read this year . . . [Christopher Rush’s] books stick in the mind when others fade from the memory the instant one puts them down. A lyrical, passionate, sensuous writer . . . Think of George Mackay Brown, or Dylan Thomas.” —The Sunday Herald
A powerful work of travel writing ....a singularly unforgettable travel memoir. Very highly recommended. To Travel Hopefully is a thoroughly "reader friendly", armchair travelogue. -The Midwest Book Review
“A work born of unquenchable art . . . It is difficult to convey the praise the book deserves. . . . The prose possesses an honesty that is fresh, still bleeding, yet shorn of the confessional guff that infests the modern media . . . The landscape is transformed.” —Scottish Review of Books
“Resonant, rich and raw . . . the master of lyrical lushness, firing every idea and image so luminously it could be picked off the page like a shard of ceramic . . . A harrowing, howling account from a man whose soul is steeped in literature, love and torment . . . A superbly readable and engaging travelogue . . . Rush is one of Scotland’s literary stars.” —The Glasgow Herald
“The words marvellously possess a seismic force . . . writing that sings with tremendous descriptive richness and self-perception . . . I was twice moved to tears, yet constantly braced by the tensile courage of the enterprise.” —The Scotsman
“An inspiring account.” —The London Times
““Quirky and colourful . . . moving and very human.” —The Sunday Times
“An astonishing pilgrimage from rage to redemption . . .” —The London Guardian
“Moving and touching.” —The Financial Times
“A brave and graceful book.” —The Spectator
“Desperately moving and beautifully written.” —Time Out (Book of the Week)
“A truly mesmerizing and beautiful book . . . rich with comic and disturbing detail . . . sweet, searching, devastating.” —Scotland on Sunday
“He writes brilliantly in this most evocative of books . . . No one who can actually read should be without it.” —Professor Derry Jeffares
“To Travel Hopefully is on a par with Joyce’s Ulysses, though strikingly different, and it has even more passion than Ulysses. When I put it down, all I could think was, ‘I want to give a copy of this book to every living person on this planet.” —Brendan Kennelly
PRICE: $17.95