The Woman Who Walked to Russia : A Writer's Search for a Lost Legend

Rating:
Summary: Easy-Peasy
Review: Cassandra Pybus, an Australian writer, heard about the legend of Lillian Alling and decided on a whim to try to follow the path of the great Jewish pioneer and to try to walk from New York to Siberia via Canada and Alaska and the Bering Strait. She and her husband converse about the best way to attack this problem. She is an overweight woman over fifty years old, so she prefers to do things the easy way. She leaves Australia and hooks up with another Australian woman called Gerry, and the two of them start driving through the West Coast of Canada on a "Thelma and Louise" style trip.

Gerry is an unusual character and, if Pybus can be believed, at first she seems like she's charming and quirky, and only later does Pybus realize she has been saddled with the road-trip mate from Hell. And things get really tense when Gerry, the Amazon who lives on horrid junk food, picks up another girl, Lisa, who apparently is bulimic.

Their three-corner adventures make up the heart of the book. It's not so much a travel book but a relationship story about two women not really understanding each other, and the hurt feelings and missed opportunities that result. You want to scream at them, "Get over it!" Meanwhile Pybus finds less and less evidence that Lillian ever did go to Russia. After all these years, there really isn't much trace of her.

It is kind of like Krakauer's INTO THE WILD, except so long ago there are no longer any witnesses.

We are left wondering, why did Lillian make the long trek to Russia? Maybe she was just stupid.

Cassandra Pybus doesn't do herself any favors either, painting a self-portrait of a whimsical, bohemian layabout who can't get along with other women but who loves the Alaskan men she meets. She sounds like she'd be the last person on earth you'd want to take a ride with.

Still, she can write, and if you haven't read INTO THE WILD, Pybus provides a lot of spoilers for that book so it's kind of like two books in one.

Rating:
Summary: The Woman Who Drove to Dawson
Review: The least information supplied in this book is about Lillian (last name uncertain), the woman, whose legend has it, walked to Russia. The author is Australian, and that is probably the market for which this book is intended. She sets off on an investigative journal to uncover information about the mysterious Lillian, and comes up instead with a travelogue about travelling in Northern British Columbia, the Yukon, and Alaska. Along the way, she fills in details of the scenery, the towns, her menu, her disfunctional friendship with her travelling companion, and offers a half dozen book reviews. For someone like myself, with a solid knowledge of North American current events and Arctic history, the narrative offers very little, and in fact, gives away important details some of books still waiting on my reading list. For others, who are looking for an introduction to the region, or enjoys another person's perspective, they may find some merit in the book. The writing style is fine, and the book does have flow to it. However, don't confuse it with investigative journalism.