Customer Reviews

Boondocking: A Novel

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The characters in Tricia Bauer's wonderful novel make us laugh and break our hearts. Grandparents Sylvia and Clayton, with their grandaughter Rita in tow, set out in a travel trailer to avoid Rita's dangerous and unstable father. What follows is not simply a tale of suspence as the trio seems to always stay one step ahead of their pursuer, but a fable about growing up in modern-day America. Bauer's voice is strong and certain and the love she shows for her characters is always in evidence. Boondocking is a hard book to put down and one you wish could, like the trailer itself, just continue on and on.

The message of this story is of love for your children's children. How tragic it is for Sylvia and Clayton when their daughter dies and they suspect their son in law behind it all. Attempting to spare their dear grandchild, they hitch up an RV and off they go in their desperate attempt to separate their grandchild from the pursuing son-in law.

Eventually, after many adventures on the road in an RV trailer, they must make amends and their grandchild has grown and the questions and curiosities need to be examined. After years of trailering and dodging the inevitable, they must make peace with the past, and look to the future together.

I felt as though I was missing something all the way through the book. Maybe we have become insensitive, but I felt as though they were running from some horrific murder, when really it was a car accident. I know drugs were involved, but I felt the daughter must have been aware of the drug use and put herself in that situation. Also, as a person in my early thirties, I didn't understand the paranoia they felt. I was really disappointed in the end when she slept with a man, it was totally uncharacteristic for her.