Along the way, Sojourner, originally from Pennsylvania, finds a love for the American Southwest, moves there, then chafes at all the other newcomers who she believes are ruining the landscape and the environment. The result is a book that addresses the author's addictions, environmental activism and progression of messy relationships. Alas, Sojourner does not fully develop any of these threads. Moreover, rather than illustrating her life with stories, Sojourner reports, without meaty narrative backup (e.g., she glosses over the collapse of her first marriage: "I had sleepwalked and jangled my way through the earlier marriage to the college poet and, in an act more merciful then [sic] I understood, left him and our baby. I had fled to a new man, and when he left, run straight into the second marriage"). The book vacillates between periods of despair and epiphanies that soon evaporate (e.g., as Sojourner is trying to quit spending so much time on the Internet and return to writing, she notes, "Words spilled from the pool of witness and recollection. And as they emptied out, I felt full. For a while"). Still, Sojourner's passion, prickly vulnerability and deep humanity are engaging when taken in small, essay-sized bites. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From Booklist Sixtysomething southwestern writer Sojourner, a commentator on National Public Radio's Morning Edition and an environmental activist, explores the conundrums of women's lives in a set of autobiographical essays. Solace forms a mosaic memoir. Inspired by the high desert, Sojourner's prose is at once spare and evocative as she remembers how her childhood was seared by her mother's depression and redeemed, in part, by her discovery of the "shelter" books provide. A self-described "good bad girl," Sojourner taps into the source of her zeal for hard work and right action and her passion for the wrong men. Married, divorced, and the mother of four early on, she remembers the misery of women's lives prior to the women's movement. Possessed of a fiercely addictive personality, she recounts with humor and wisdom her struggles to steer clear of alcohol, gambling, and even the Internet, ultimately transcending the personal to illuminate the woes of our entire consumer culture.  Scribner 0-7432-2968-1 / 9780743229685
Hardcover As New Condition  New York 

Price: 23.91 USD