Kiss the Sunset Pig: A Canadian's American Road Trip (with Exotic Detours)

John Abbott is a professor of history at Laurentian University’s Algoma University College. He is the co-author of The Border at Sault Ste Marie and The History of Fort St. Joseph.

This is a tale of journeying and sojourning, on inner and outer tracks,
in internal and external space, living on and just beyond the thin edge
of prudence. We accompany Laurie Gough on a trip from Guelph, Ontario,
to California, an excursion to rediscover a cave above a beach where, in
her 20s, she had spent several days. At the time of the present journey
she is (as she describes herself during a casino sojourn in West
Wendover, Nevada) “a 34-year-old woman, never married, childless, with
a sunburned Celtic complexion, long, wet, tangled auburn hair, shorts
and top a little crumpled ... driving a beaten-up car and washing [her]
hair in a casino bathroom ... running away.”

On the road to California and the cave of epiphany (or not) she
revisits and re-evaluates journeys she has taken to other places. We
share her experiences as she lives on a beach in Greece, teaches Cree
children in Kashechewan, travels in Thailand and Indonesia, and spends a
night on a Jamaican beach where she came to believe “that everyday
reality is just a drop in the ocean of all there is.” Perhaps the best
story concerns the passenger who accompanied her as far as St. Louis,
and the adventure they had crossing the border at Sarnia–Port Huron.

Is it a good read? Yes: Gough’s observations on American society are
more entertaining and even penetrating than those left us by John
Steinbeck in Travels with Charley. “Parental Units” who have reared
daughters with some of Laurie Gough’s proclivities will quail at the
risks she took, but even they will admire the cool insouciance of the
central character and her mastery of the writer’s craft.