The Woman Who Walked to Russia: A Writer's Search for a Lost Legend - Softcover

Pybus, Cassandra

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1568582900 ISBN 13: 9781568582900

Publisher: Four Walls Eight Windows, 2003

Synopsis

From the moment Cassandra Pybus first heard about Lillian Alling’s trek across North America, she couldn’t get the story out of her mind. This is how it went: Desperate with homesickness, Lillian Alling, a recent immigrant to the United States from the Soviet Union, haunted the New York Public Library, studying the atlas to establish the most direct route home to her native Russia. Her English was poor but she understood the hieroglyphics of cartography. In the spring of 1927, aided only by a hand-drawn map, she started to walk home. Pybus searched for clues about this enigmatic pedestrian. When her historical sleuthing yielded little, she set out on her own trek to trace Lillian’s route through the wilderness of northwestern Canada and subarctic Alaska and Siberia. The result is an entertaining travel narrative that pieces together Alling’s journey through the natural beauty and rich history of northwestern North America — a story never before told.

About this title

About the Author:

Cassandra Pybus is one of Australia's best-known writers and the author of several award-winning books including "'The Devil and James McAuley"', which won the prestigious "'Adelaide Festival Award for Non-Fiction in 2000"', and "'Gross Moral Turpitude"', which won the "'Colin Roderick Award for the Best Australian Book in 1994"'. Cassandra holds a PhD in history from Sydney University and is an Australian Research Council Senior Fellow in History at the University of Tasmania.

From Publishers Weekly:

Australian writer Pybus takes a fitful journey through Canada and Alaska to follow in the footsteps of Lillian Alling, a Russian woman who, in 1927, walked from New York City to British Columbia, thinking that she could reach Siberia. What little Pybus knows about this "compulsive pedestrian" comes from vague newspaper clippings that describe her as nearly mute, emaciated and resembling "a haunted person." Imbued with curiosity and kinship for her "elusive quarry," Pybus sets out with her traveling companion, Gerry, a robust and prickly fellow Aussie, on "a kind of feminist adventure. A cross between Thelma and Louise and the Two Fat Ladies," the two drive for hours on perilous roads, lodge in freezing cabins and spend a lot of time arguing-mostly about food, the aspects of which (starvation, bulimia, nutrition and guilt) become a recurrent theme. The scenes with Gerry add spark to Pybus's often hopeless wild goose chase, and when they part ways, Gerry's sass is missed. However, in the face of constant disappointment and dead-ends, Pybus turns her attention to the world around her for inspiration, and her accounts of bear sightings, salmon spawning and weather patterns, along with her keen social interest in the logging and hunting industries, create a textured portrait of a dazzling, dangerous landscape. In the end, a few small developments surface to add insight and meaning to Alling's trek, but the real journey is Pybus's, as she is a lively and likable wanderer. Map.
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About this edition

• Publisher: Four Walls Eight Windows
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 1568582900
• ISBN 13: 9781568582900
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 256