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The Trip To Echo Spring (2013)

by Olivia Laing(Favorite Author)

3.58 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

1847677940 (ISBN13: 9781847677945)

languge

English

genre

Memoir & Autobiography

publisher

Canongate Books

review 1: I love the structure of this book. Laing weaves each writer's story in and out of every chapter with the exception of Raymond Carver who gets the end all to himself and is only mentioned briefly at the beginning in reference to his relationship with John Cheever. By setting up the structure this way, we feel like we are on the train with her, traveling across the country. Also, this book is very interesting in the way it takes a critical look at drinking and the effects on these writer's creativity. At times, Laing ventures into analysis, making connections between the writer's drinking, the trauma in their backgrounds, and their writing. Laing also takes some risks in analyzing Berryman's eventual suicide as a failure to get him the help he needed which could not be found... more in AA; Laing suggests that Berryman needed analysis because he was fixated on his own father's suicide and could not move on from that point. The biography and travelogues fit well together and I enjoyed them very much. The memoir sections of the book were a little thin, as if we were only privileged to the broad strokes of her past and her own encounters with alcoholics. This was unfortunate since we get such an in-depth analysis of these writers and even great in-depth descriptions of her travel. But I guess it is harder to analyze ourselves than it is to analyze others. Still, I enjoyed this book very much and anyone who has a fascination with these guys - Carver, Cheever, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Berryman and Tennessee Williams - will enjoy this book. I felt as if I entered their world entirely and that I know them in a way that I didn't just by reading their work.
review 2: Laing set out on a unique voyage in A Trip to Echo Spring —travel by train from New York to Seattle (via New Orleans and Miami) in search of Hemingway, Cheever, Williams, Berryman, Fitzgerald and Carver, all of whom were alcoholics. I love any kind of quest, and I knew little, so this would be perfect. Laing voice draws you into their stories and she weaves her own personal confrontations with alcoholism into the tale as well. less

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