My love of 80's music knows now bounds...except when it comes to the Canadian band Rush. When their drummer, Neil Peart would appear as one of the Top 10 musicians on various lists (officially or just friends'), I'd inwardly cringe.
However, last year thanks to the wonderful creation that is Netflix, I somehow managed to sit and watch a Rush documentary titled Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage that Big A had added to the list and I loved it! As usual, I still didn't really grasp why they had such diehard fans but this movie had much more behind the scenes with each of the three band members. Along the way during this movie, I learned that while I still didn't like their music, I kinda of liked the guys. The documentary touched briefly on Neil Peart losing his 19 year old daughter in a car accident in the late 1990's which was followed 10 months later by her mother/his common-law wife's death from cancer. Something he attributed more to a broken heart (and having had a mother die within 2 years of my father dying, I can kind of understand. If not from a broken heart, than the shock of having a loved one die and living life after that on nothing but adrenaline can wear you down enough that foreign objects would have an easier time attacking your body) than to actual cancer.
Neil Peart ended up going on a solo motorcycle ride across Canada, through the western US, down into Mexico and Belize and keeping a journal of this trip of healing which then became a published book entitled Ghost Rider: Travels On The Healing Road. I kept thinking about his story and this book but never remembered it whenever I happened to be on Amazon so Big A got it for me for Christmas.
The book is divided in two: I just completed Book 1 - Riding The Healing Road which involves his decision to leave his lake home in Quebec and just ride his motorcycle with only a few official stops along the way but other than that, he went wherever he wanted to. I just had to stop and share this book with the few readers that might remain. :-) I seem to have a love for these kinds of stories - taking off by yourself and seeing things and meeting new people. In my teen years, I read A Walk Across America about a man and his dog and the follow up (which wasn't nearly as good...must be due to the new wife coming instead of the dog). One of my favorite movies is The Matchmaker (warning for the males in the audience: it is a chick flick!) which is about a woman who goes to Ireland to help a politician find his supposed Irish roots to help his election back home. Naturally she falls in love with an Irish lad and is a hit with the locals. But all of these are about people who go somewhere on their own (leave their comfort zone?) and meet new people.
For basically a travel book, Book 1 is written very descriptively but not 'travel guide dry'. Neil's description of Utah alone makes me want to head west and visit it (while reminding me of what Sage has written about his time in Utah). Along the way, he also stops at important spots in various author's life such as John Steinbeck. He gets into Edward Abbey while visiting Arizona. Neil Peart is obviously not the stereotypical musician. He sees this love of reading and seeing spots of some of his favorite authors as well as getting back into birdwatching and riding his motorcycle as Step 1 to getting back to who he was before the tragedies happened. These are things he has done since he was a kid.
He touches on it briefly during Book 1, but I believe the second part Book 2 - Homeward Angel On The Fly deals with how he keeps himself busy while being back in the house that he shared with them...but I could be wrong. Stay tuned!
6 comments:
I've heard of the book and may actually own both of them somewhere downstairs in a box. If I remember when I get my bookshelves built, I'll have to read them. I've read several books about people heading out on motorcycles to ride and write about it later. They all have been good reads.
Did you ever read Into The Wild? It definitely has the "taking off by yourself" aspect.
Into the Wild was one of those can't-put-down books.
Ed and Bone: I had the misfortune of seeing the movie which I thought sucked and probably ruined an otherwise great 'on my own' book.
Ed - Technically it is one book, just two different 'books' within the book. Neil did write an earlier book about his travels through Africa. I believe that too was via motorcycle. That might be an interesting read as well. Nothing like being chased by a lion on your Vespa to make a story exciting. Actually, that might be more along the lines of my book. :-)
I like those books about taking off by yourself... and I like to live such dreams too.
I also agree about "Walk Across America" The first was much better, but I also felt his "conversion" was one of those "now I know everything types" that made him obnoxious (but it has been 30 years since I read them, so my memory is faded some)
Post a Comment