Travel Writing
By Peter Ferry
(Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Hardcover, 9780151014361, 304pp.)
Publication Date: August 2008
Other Editions of This Title: Paperback (July 2009), Hardcover (July 2009), (August 2008), (August 2008), - Abridged (August 2008), - Abridged (August 2008), MP3 CD - Abridged (August 2008)
Categories: General
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**DEBUT FICTION** Pete Ferry, our narrator, teaches high school English in the wealthy suburb of Lake Forest outside of Chicago, and moonlights as a travel writer. On his way home after work one evening he witnesses a car accident that kills a beautiful woman named Lisa Kim. But was it an accident? Could Pete have prevented it? And did it actually happen, or is this just an elaborate tale he concocts to impart the power of story to his restless teenage charges? Why can’t he stop thinking about Lisa Kim? And what might his obsession with her mean to his relationship with his girlfriend, Lydia?
With humor, tenderness, and suspense, Travel Writing takes readers on fascinating journeys, both geographical and psychological, and delves into the notion that the line between fact and fiction is often negotiable.PETER FERRY is a teacher, writer, and editor. He has written textbooks for Rand McNally and travel pieces for the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times. His short stories have appared in StoryQuarterly, Overtures, the New Review of Literature, and McSweeney's. He has won the Illinois Arts Council Literary Award for Short Fiction. He lives in Evanston, Illinois.
ADVANCE PRAISE FOR TRAVEL WRITING "The book is totally captivating and page-turning on one level, completely soulful and honest on another level, beautifully written and in touch with the good living of life (in a Hemingway sort of way) on another level still, and all the while it raises all kinds of fascinating questions about fiction and fact and the writing process (without ever being too clever or coy)."—Dave Eggers, author of What Is the What
"Travel Writing is an absolute pleasure to read. It is ensnaring, funny, suspenseful, smart and poignant.... Peter Ferry fits stories within stories like mirrors reflecting mirrors to expose our assumptions about fact and the imagination. When his protagonist declares, 'I am a teacher and a storyteller in that order,' he offers a clue to the mission underliying this immensely entertaining, keenly conceived and brilliantly realized puzzle of a novel. Ferry is offering us a covert refresher course in the revelatory power of story, the responsibility of writers and the unending hunger for truth."
-Donna Seaman
"Shockingly, it succeeds as both a rich character study and a twisty whodunit, adding one more voice to the lively conversation about the boundaries between memoir and fiction. A- "
"The book is totally captivating and page-turning on one level, beautifully written and in touch with the good living of life (in a Hemingway sort of way) on another level, and all the while it raises all kinds of fascinating questions about fiction and fact, the writing process and teaching of literature. That it does all this and manages to be always honest and full of soul is truly remarkable."
"An ingenious novel: part mystery, part love story, partly a commentary on the art of writing fiction itself. A post-modern Rear Window with some snappy travel writing thrown in. A splendid debut by a novelist who has clearly spent a lot of time thinking about novels."
"[A] winning first novel...Ferry's prose is so entrancing, his mild-mannered yet covertly audacious hero is so compelling, there is nothing intrusive or pretentious about this metafiction setup...A mordently funny and diabolically smart novel of happenstance and responsibility."
"Imaginative...For readers interested in experimental fiction and psychological puzzles."
"Quietly tricky...a novel, that for all the cleverness of its construction, is also earnest, engrossing and affecting."
"Compelling.... Ferry builds suspense skillfully.... Travel Writing illustrates the power of several kinds of story: love stories, travelogues, parables, family anecdotes, moral tales and the yarns people tell after a few beers late at night..."
"[T]his is a soulful and well-written page-turner."
"Truly gripping."
-Emmanuelle Smith
"Genuinely thrilling and leads to a powerful and troubling climax."
-Philip Womack
"Peter Ferry's first novel immediately captures the reader's imagination, drawing you into a story filled with humour, tenderness and suspense...as entertaining as it is intriguing and not to be missed."
"Ferry's first novel is a fresh take on the sometimes fatigued option that writers take of writing about writing, as he intelligently plays with the notions of fact and fiction, illusion and reality.... A playful, thoughtful debut."
On the strength of his new fiction...his next signing ought to be for a multi-book deal...Travel Writing is a memoir, a travelogue, and a detective story. It's great storytelling delights.
-Rabin, Kurt
In the cleverly constructed novel, Ferry toys with some interesting ideas, mainly the line that exists between fact and fiction.
-Houlihan, Mary
A darn good yarn, capable of taking you to that place where all you want to do is turn the next page...to see what happens next.
One of those fabulously intricate novels in which you never quite know what is true and what is not--a book that becomes an exercise and exploration of the ubiquitous existence of storytelling in our lives. In other words, a perfect first novel.
Peter Ferry's carefully wrought first novel...comes alive in the classroom and on the road. What draws us into "Travel Writing" is the author's pure love of teaching and his thirst for travel.
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