Mother, Nature

September 4, 2023
Wilderness magazine editor Jenkins (To Shake the Sleeping Self) tackles his fraught relationship with his conservative mother in this affecting memoir. In the 1970s, Jenkins’s parents, Peter and Barbara, who later divorced, became famous for walking across America and coauthoring a book about it. Clashes with Barbara over religion and politics impelled Jenkins, who is gay, to move from Nashville to L.A. in 2002 when he was 19; in his 30s, he came to fear that, if he continued seeing his mother just twice a year, he might only see her 12 more times before she died. After several planned vacations (including a Glenn Beck–led history cruise from Italy to Israel) were thwarted by the pandemic, Jenkins and his mother decided to retrace Barbara’s cross-country walk in 2021. Along the way, they argued about homosexuality (“I think homosexuality... is a spiritual deception”), discussed Barbara and Peter’s divorce, and confirmed that one thing mother and son did share is a fierce mutual love. Jenkins’s vivid, admiring depiction of Barbara—a woman who loves God, her son, and true crime podcasts with near-equal passion—is wonderfully multidimensional, and his acceptance of their differences lends the memoir an air of maturity. The result is a moving ode to a complicated mother-son bond. Agent: Bryan Norman, Alive Literary. (Nov.)This review has been updated with further information.

September 15, 2023
A gay author tells the story of an unforgettable cross-country road trip with his conservative Christian mother. As he neared 40, Jenkins, the author of To Shake the Sleeping Self and Like Streams to the Ocean, came to a sobering realization: His devoutly Baptist mother, a "timeless force of nature," would one day die. Wanting to spend as much time as possible with her, he overrode the "claustrophobia" of her narrow-mindedness by bringing a friend along on a trip to Europe. Later, his mother proposed a Glenn Beck cruise which Jenkins accepted only because the trip would allow him to become "a voyeur [and] social anthropologist" among the conservatives he imagined would be his fellow travelers. When the pandemic cancelled the cruise, the pair decided on a road trip that would retrace his mother and father's "walk across America" during the late 1970s. "From 1976 to 1979," writes Jenkins, "my mom and dad walked 2,600 miles from Louisiana to the Oregon Coast." Navigating roads that would take them through the South, the Rockies and on to the West Coast, mother and son also navigated the complexities of a deeply affectionate relationship fractured by their respective belief systems. The author had left Nashville for Los Angeles to explore the sexuality that his conservative Christian mother--a woman who also believed colloidal silver, rather than medical science, cured all ills, including Covid-19--could not accept. In 20 years away from her, his fondest wish to be married had not manifested because of "decades of unpacking," and his mother's prayers for sexual "healing" had intervened. Though the author and his mother never managed to reconcile their differences, what makes this heartfelt, often funny book so rewarding is the portrait Jenkins offers of two people still willing to accept the challenge of loving each other despite clashing beliefs. Engaging reading for divided times.

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Starred review from October 1, 2023

In the 1970s, Jenkins's parents walked from New Orleans to Oregon on foot; it became a famous story that was captured in various magazines, including National Geographic, and eventually in a book that sold more than 12 million copies. In 2020, Wilderness magazine executive editor Jenkins (Like Streams to the Ocean) endeavored to retrace his parents' steps on a road trip with his mother as a way to strengthen their relationship and to bridge a divide so commonly seen in modern America: the polar opposition on views of sexuality, contextualized against the backdrop of religion and politics. During the journey, Jenkins, a liberal gay man, and his mother, a conservative Christian woman, are able to find what many people struggle to achieve: a way to peacefully coexist. VERDICT Their path is not always easy, and some of their conversations are painfully raw, but through it all, their love and respect for each other shine brightly.--Katy Duperry

Copyright 2023 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 15, 2023
Before Jenkins was born, his parents became famous for walking 2,600 miles from New Orleans to Florence, Oregon, and writing a best-selling trilogy about the journey. Now, 40 years later, Jenkins, himself a writer (Like Streams to the Ocean, 2020), decides to take a trip with his mother to retrace her journey (by car). The result is this combination travel book and memoir of the author's metaphorical journey to understanding with his conservative, deeply religious mother about his sexual identity. While acknowledging her son is gay, she cannot approve of it due to her beliefs. This dramatic tension drives the narrative, leading Jenkins to finally ask THE question: if he were to marry (a man), would she come to the ceremony? Meanwhile, their physical journey unfolds, from the French Quarter in New Orleans to the Oregon shore of the Pacific. This trip is pleasant and quiet; the drama here is interior. The well-written result--two trips for the price of onet--is altogether thought-provoking.

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