First published 2021
In 1954, sixty-three-year-old Maine farmer Annie Wilkins faces an impossible situation. She has lost her farm, has no money or family, and her doctor gives her two years to live. But Annie refuses to enter the county charity home. She wants to see the Pacific Ocean before she dies. Annie buys a cast-off brown gelding named Tarzan, puts on men's dungarees, and heads south in November with her faithful mutt Depeche Toi. She has no map and little idea what lies beyond her rural crossroads. For two years, Annie and her companions travel over four thousand miles through a rapidly changing America. They push through blizzards, ford rivers, and cling to highway shoulders as cars speed past. Annie meets ordinary people and celebrities like Andrew Wyeth, Art Linkletter, and Groucho Marx. She receives offers for homes, jobs, and even marriage. In a decade when car ownership triples and neighbors begin locking their doors, Annie's journey inspires unexpected kindness across the country.
Genres: american-fiction, 20th-century, adventure, biography-memoir
Vibes: emotional-atmospheric, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: fish-out-of-water, second-chance
Setting: Maine, Pacific Ocean
Period: 1954
512 pages · Paperback · Random House Large Print
Content warnings: terminal-illness