Book Review: Tripping to Somewhere, by Kristopher Reisz
Tripping to Somewhere was the bookclub selection for the month of January. Check the tag on rachelmanija's journal to see previous selections and discussion.
Gilly and Sam are stuck in the middle of nowhere Alabama, with no real hope for the future. Then, a crazy homeless guy named Meek tells Gilly that the Witches' Carnival will be passing through Atlanta and she can catch them if she runs. The two take off, fueled in equal part by desperation and ennui - and in the process wind up turning the world around them upside-down, leaving chaos and exhilaration in their wake.
Of the books I've read recently, this is one of the most experiential, driven by the music, the food, the sights and the drug trips, till my own head started tilting, almost like I was there. It wasn't always my scene, despite my being a former Bennington student, but the words did their job in transporting me.
The characters, even the ones the book didn't spend much time on, generally felt like people you could meet in real life, especially Sam and Gilly. Gilly, the protagonist and large-part narrator starts with a lot of growing to do and the clear potential for it, and winds up developing into someone really cool. The reader spends a lot of time in her head, and I thought Reisz did a good job of selling her POV, so that I bought everything she did, even at times I thought what she was doing sounded less than intelligent.
I do wish Reisz had spent more time on the members of the Witches' Carnival itself. They felt more like cyphers than anyone else - though that might have been appropriate, considering how much the Carnival's legend relied on transience. We got a little more on Maggie than the others, but I still didn't feel like I really knew her, at the end of the day.
It would have been really easy for Reisz to make Sam and Gilly's families complete monsters or nonentities. Instead, he made it clear that while Gilly's parents were epic fuckups, they also loved her a hell of a lot, which made the whole situation much more human and shades-of-grey. Sam's were sketchier, but she did have her brother, Josh, who she was close to. I appreciated that Reisz didn't just go and make either girl's situation straightforwardly abusive. It would have been so much easier to do - and so much more difficult to do well.
The other subject Reisz didn't pick easy answers on was his treatment of sexuality. Gilly is a lesbian. Sam identifies as straight. The easy, cliched thing to do would be to have Gilly pine hopelessly for her straight best friend. And some of that does happen. But the two of them also do have a friends-with-benefits relationship. Neither of them really knows what to call it or where they stand with each other. What really shines through is the friendship. I wasn't always sure they were good for each other, but I never doubted that they loved one another. I suspect that 'bisexual' would have been the better descriptor for Sam, but I'm hardly surprised it wasn't something which occurred to someone raised in rural, intolerant Alabama. Similarly, when Gilly falls head over heels for another woman, she doesn't just magically get over Sam. In fact, this choice builds a lot of the climactic conflict.
Normally, I groan loudly when a book largely dealing with the protagonist escaping or being taken to a different, magical world ends with them coming back to normality and staying for good. To me, it always reads like a moral of 'give up your dreams, give up all risk and focus on the security of the status quo.' Barf. (I'm obviously going to make exceptions for cases where the magical world is so crapsack staying was never an option. See also: Half World.)
Yes, I hated the ending of the Wizard of Oz movie. A lot.
Here, however, even though Gilly comes home, I didn't feel like she was cheated. Her staying behind in order to give Sam her ticket was a moment of heroic sacrifice and personal growth. The fact that she made that choice, and that it was made in courage and pride made a huge difference. I braced myself to hate it, but I didn't.
In other matters, was I the only one who thought Meek might be Odin? I mean, come on, a mysterious supernatural figure with a missing eye and a raven? That says 'Odin,' to me.
Though Tripping to Somewhere is YA, it's definitely on the older side. Swearing, drugs and lesbian sex ahoy! Obviously, I don't mind any of the above. Just don't like give it as a gift to your twelve year old niece or something.
Gilly and Sam are stuck in the middle of nowhere Alabama, with no real hope for the future. Then, a crazy homeless guy named Meek tells Gilly that the Witches' Carnival will be passing through Atlanta and she can catch them if she runs. The two take off, fueled in equal part by desperation and ennui - and in the process wind up turning the world around them upside-down, leaving chaos and exhilaration in their wake.
Of the books I've read recently, this is one of the most experiential, driven by the music, the food, the sights and the drug trips, till my own head started tilting, almost like I was there. It wasn't always my scene, despite my being a former Bennington student, but the words did their job in transporting me.
The characters, even the ones the book didn't spend much time on, generally felt like people you could meet in real life, especially Sam and Gilly. Gilly, the protagonist and large-part narrator starts with a lot of growing to do and the clear potential for it, and winds up developing into someone really cool. The reader spends a lot of time in her head, and I thought Reisz did a good job of selling her POV, so that I bought everything she did, even at times I thought what she was doing sounded less than intelligent.
I do wish Reisz had spent more time on the members of the Witches' Carnival itself. They felt more like cyphers than anyone else - though that might have been appropriate, considering how much the Carnival's legend relied on transience. We got a little more on Maggie than the others, but I still didn't feel like I really knew her, at the end of the day.
It would have been really easy for Reisz to make Sam and Gilly's families complete monsters or nonentities. Instead, he made it clear that while Gilly's parents were epic fuckups, they also loved her a hell of a lot, which made the whole situation much more human and shades-of-grey. Sam's were sketchier, but she did have her brother, Josh, who she was close to. I appreciated that Reisz didn't just go and make either girl's situation straightforwardly abusive. It would have been so much easier to do - and so much more difficult to do well.
The other subject Reisz didn't pick easy answers on was his treatment of sexuality. Gilly is a lesbian. Sam identifies as straight. The easy, cliched thing to do would be to have Gilly pine hopelessly for her straight best friend. And some of that does happen. But the two of them also do have a friends-with-benefits relationship. Neither of them really knows what to call it or where they stand with each other. What really shines through is the friendship. I wasn't always sure they were good for each other, but I never doubted that they loved one another. I suspect that 'bisexual' would have been the better descriptor for Sam, but I'm hardly surprised it wasn't something which occurred to someone raised in rural, intolerant Alabama. Similarly, when Gilly falls head over heels for another woman, she doesn't just magically get over Sam. In fact, this choice builds a lot of the climactic conflict.
Normally, I groan loudly when a book largely dealing with the protagonist escaping or being taken to a different, magical world ends with them coming back to normality and staying for good. To me, it always reads like a moral of 'give up your dreams, give up all risk and focus on the security of the status quo.' Barf. (I'm obviously going to make exceptions for cases where the magical world is so crapsack staying was never an option. See also: Half World.)
Yes, I hated the ending of the Wizard of Oz movie. A lot.
Here, however, even though Gilly comes home, I didn't feel like she was cheated. Her staying behind in order to give Sam her ticket was a moment of heroic sacrifice and personal growth. The fact that she made that choice, and that it was made in courage and pride made a huge difference. I braced myself to hate it, but I didn't.
In other matters, was I the only one who thought Meek might be Odin? I mean, come on, a mysterious supernatural figure with a missing eye and a raven? That says 'Odin,' to me.
Though Tripping to Somewhere is YA, it's definitely on the older side. Swearing, drugs and lesbian sex ahoy! Obviously, I don't mind any of the above. Just don't like give it as a gift to your twelve year old niece or something.