THE SUNSET ROUTE by Carrot Quinn - Review & Giveaway

 

Carrot Quinn's memoir, THE SUNSET ROUTE (TheDialPress) is one of the most brilliant books I've read. For Carrot to write so poetically while revealing such desperation, it's not an easy book to absorb. Carrot grows up in Alaska with a schizophrenic mentally-ill mother who speaks to the Virgin Mary, a brother and has no father. She's neglected, hungry more often than not, living moment to moment, surviving. She leaves Alaska at fourteen years old after her mother attempts to strangle her.

At that point, Carrot makes her way to Portland, falls into a counter culture existence living in punk houses, eating from dumpsters, shoplifting and traveling the country by rail. Carrot is introduced to the memoir, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard which gently leads her to embracing nature, feeling one with the trees and water. This memoir is her bible throughout the story. She lives in forests, homeless camps, exists out of society. 

THE SUNSET ROUTE has a running theme of loneliness, isolation and grief. Carrot believes she is "unlovable trash" and is constantly trying to connect with another human. When she does, it is short lived and she ends up disappointed. Her description of hopping trains, meeting other hobos, living an alternative lifestyle is all interesting, but unsettling at best.

Towards the end she hasn't seen her mother in eighteen years and feels shame wondering if she should be taking care of her. She learns her mother is alive, and searches for her in Alaska, always a step behind.  At the end of the memoir, she discovers long distance hiking making the 10,000 mile trip between Mexico and Canada three times. "I am new, clean and empty as the wind."

THE SUNSET ROUTE left me rattled after reading Carrot's journey and grateful for my own existence.

CARROT'S WORDS:

My name is Carrot Quinn. In 2013 I hiked from Mexico to Canada on the Pacific Crest Trail. I wrote a book about my hike, called Thru-Hiking Will Break Your Heart. That book is available here.

In 2014 I thru-hiked Pacific Crest Trail a second time. You can see all 116 of those blog posts here. Why did I hike the PCT a second time? I don’t know. Why does anything do anything? Why is there something instead of nothing?

In 2015 I thru-hiked the Continental Divide Trail. You can see all those posts here. Since then I’ve also thru-hiked the Lowest to Highest Route, the Hayduke Route, the Wind River High Route, the Kings Canyon High Basin Route and some other things. Those links are in the menu up top.

More about me:

I am 38 years old. I was raised in Alaska on welfare by a schizophrenic single mother who thought that she was the reincarnation of the Virgin Mary. At fourteen I was adopted by my conservative catholic grandparents, and I went to high-school in a small Colorado town near the Utah border. At seventeen I moved out on my own. I worked graveyard shifts at Denny’s to support myself during my senior year of high-school. In 2001, at nineteen, I moved to Portland, and fell in with a bunch of straight-edge anarchists. They taught me how to ride freight trains, dumpster all my food, talk about my feelings, and cook things in cast iron skillets. It was  ******* awesome. I spent my twenties working summers in Alaska, writing in the winters in Portland, and in between I hitchhiked and rode freight trains across this great North American continent. At 28 I was tired of breathing diesel exhaust and accruing trespassing tickets so I hung up my stained carharts, so to speak, figuring my life of adventure was over. That sucked. Luckily, a few years later I discovered long-distance hiking. And here we are.

Contact me: carrotquinn4@gmail.com

Thanks to BookBrowse and The Dial Press/Random House we have one copy to giveaway. Just tell us if you've ever wanted to start over - maybe runaway, ride the rails... whatever. We'll announce a winner soon. Good luck.

GIVEAWAY: USA only please