Here’s the publisher’s blurb on Lori Soderlind, who is reading on September 21 at Brooklyn Reading Works at the Old Stone House at 8 p.m. Fifth Avenue between 3rd and 4th Streets. Her book, CHASING MONTANA: A LOVE STORY, is said to be "an outrageous adventure told with humor and compassion."
Lori, the heroine of this rousing narrative, is attempting to flee the hectic East Coast for a better life in the West. She is a child of the Seventies who feels misled by the rebellious "boomer" generation and disappointed with life in 1980s New Jersey. Spurred by the tale of her pioneering grandparents, who immigrated to Montana, and following her friend Madeleine, who has all the answers, Lori quits her job, loosens her ties, and sets off into a wild frontier.
Lori’s story is one of love for people and for places that are more mythic than real. Her pursuit is as painfully familiar as it is impossible: she seeks meaning in life while working dead-end jobs, falls in love with uninterested partners, and plans a future that seems doomed from the start. Somehow, though, she persists and ultimately finds her place as a twenty-first-century pioneer.
"An understated and moving memoir that feels like a road trip with a really good friend. But more than that, it’s a subtle social commentary, a travel story, a coming out, and an epitaph for the ghost towns of the West. Chasing Montana will be a new road favorite for meandering women across the land."–Mack Friedman, author of Setting the Lawn on Fire
"I rolled down my window. The air rushed in like a flood of invisible cotton, soft and edgeless. It smelled like the earth baked in sun. Oh god: it could all be so beautiful, it could, it could, if we wanted. I yelled above the radio and the wind rushing in: ‘Madeleine, I want to be free as wild horses, I want to live among the buffalo, I want to let my hair grow to my knees and swim naked in cold rivers. I want to live, to live, to live until I die and nothing can stop me now. I WANT TO BE FREEEEEEE!’ "–Excerpt from Chasing Montana