THE RHYTHM OF THE ROAD

Author: Albyn Leah Hall ISBN: 0312359446 1/2007 FICTION Publisher: THOMAS DUNNE BOOKS

A truck driver’s daughter who grows up in the front seat of her father's truck, Jo shares her father’s love of country music, junk food, and the open highway. Jo’s life is a perfect slice of Americana, except that their “open road" is in England, and her father--the gentle,  melancholy Bobby Pickering--is from Northern Ireland. The only truly American thing about Jo is her mother, whom she has never met.  Jo is twelve when she and Bobby pick up hitchhiker Cosima Stewart, an American country singer whose band is touring England. They become dedicated fans, and Cosima, touched by the unlikely duo, comes to regard Jo with an indulgent, even sisterly, eye. But when Jo is sixteen, Bobby sinks into serious despair and Jo seeks refuge in Cosima and the band. When Bobby disappears, Jo’s adoration becomes obsessive as she follows her idol all to the way to California. Here, in the sweltering Mohave Desert and alone for the first time, Jo must face the painful truths of her own life, the mother she has never known, and the father she can’t force from her mind. With shades of Zadie Smith and Mark Haddon, Albyn Leah Hall’s powerful debut is a page-turning study of what frightens us about one another and ourselves; of how we run away and what we can’t, ultimately, escape from.

RRAH's THOUGHTS AND PONDERINGS:

THE RHYTHM OF THE ROAD isn't the type of book I'd normally pick out in a bookstore. I'm not into country music and I certainly don't know that much about truckers, unless you count watching old Burt Reynold's Smokie and the Bandit movies many years ago. But this book seemed a bit different and intriguing to me, for it takes place in the U.K. rather than the U.S. and chronicles the life of a young girl who knows nothing more than the love of her father, the rhythm of the road and country music, seen mostly through her eyes.

This is not an easy book to read in many ways and for many different reasons, and the deeper you get into each character's own story, the easier the tendency becomes to psychoanalyze them. THE RHYTHM OF THE ROAD is a deep read and yet fascinating, chock full of the kind of characters that you don't really want to watch, but just like a bad train wreck you can't seem to look away from.

The first chapters of the book are a back and forth look into both the lives of the daughter, Jo, and of her father, Bobby, while the latter parts concentrate on Jo's slowly declining mental state and her meeting with her mother, Rosalie, her mother's husband and other children.

Deserted at birth by Rosalie and left in the U.K. to be raised by Bobby—a depressive and sad character if ever there was one—Jo has never experienced the closeness and bonding with friends her own age, let alone the tender touch or influence of a mother. Jo only knows Bobby and the life she lives with him on the road as a trucker. When Bobby suddenly disappears, Jo is basically left an outcast, a throw-away child with no mother, low self-esteem and no self worth. She finds herself lost with no direction and slowly latches on to, and becomes obsessed with, the one person who lives a dream life that Jo can only imagine—Cosima, a rising U.K. country music star from America she'd met while on the road with her father. What begins as showing kindness to the lost young girl, however, soon turns into Cosima being stalked by Jo. When Cosima leaves for a tour of the U.S., Jo follows close behind, and it is there, as she fatefully confronts Cosima and is reunited with her mother, that Jo's madness finally comes to a head.

You can't help but have so much empathy, become emotional and feel sad as you watch Jo's descent into a living nightmare not really of her own making. Gut wrenching and emotionally charged, yet with a more upbeat conclusion so it doesn't totally weigh you down, Albyn Leah Hall has penned an unforgettable story whose characters will resonate with you for a long, long time to come. It's one of those rare finds that with one look at the cover, everything, all the trials and tribulations that Jo faces along THE RHYTHM OF THE ROAD will come tumbling back, whether you want them to or not.

Overall, THE RHYTHM OF THE ROAD is a very impressive debut book from an exceptionally talented author, perfect for those who enjoy their fictional reads riveting and emotionally intense.

Nancy Davis