Driving by Moonlight: A Journey Through Love, War, and Infertility [Paperback]

Kristin Henderson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 29, 2003

After 9/11, Kristin Henderson’s husband, a Lutheran Marine chaplain, is shipped out to Afghanistan, and Henderson, a Quaker, finds herself alone, and her own faith and belief in pacifism sorely tested. Together with her German shepherd, Rosie, Henderson sets off on a cross-country journey in her 1978 Corvette, exploring a changed country and her own altered emotional landscape. From the whispering Iowan corn fields and the simple fortitude of her Quaker kin, to the desolation of a snow-swept lodge in the Rocky Mountains and the quiet gifts of strangers, Henderson seeks guidance and searches for answers on the road. She muses on her life as a military wife, on the unexpected divergence in faith that tested her marriage, and details, with honesty and fierce bravery, the devastating battle with infertility that nearly tore it apart. In this intelligent meditation on how life—like topographical boundaries—resists strict borders, and on the freedom that comes with letting go, Kristin Henderson gives us an ultimately hopeful and affirming memoir.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The events of September 11, 2001, caused many Americans to re-examine their core beliefs. Henderson, a Quaker married to a Marine chaplain (and former Lutheran minister), was already juggling a multitude of contradictory beliefs before the terrorist attacks. This chronicle of a cross-country road trip with her German shepherd, Rosie, in a '78 Corvette, as her husband is shipped off to Afghanistan with the Marines, is less a travelogue than an intimate musing on her inner struggles, a time-out to come to terms with shifting religious beliefs, a complicated marriage and, primarily, her long, painful and unsuccessful attempt to have a baby. As she is a sophisticated and humorous writer, Henderson's initial naivete about politics, religion and life in general is surprising. But this ingenuousness is redeemed by her frank acknowledgment that she hasn't a clue, and by her search for meaning. She whimsically compares her variety of religious experiences to cars (Quakerism is a Pacer; atheism, an MG; born-again Christianity, a custom leisure van; Lutheranism, a Ford sedan). Unlike her Midwestern Quaker cousins, after September 11, with her husband at risk, she becomes impatient with pacifism and excited about American flags. But Henderson slowly evolves to more nuanced views, from thinking of God as an indulgent, wish-fulfilling parent to considering, "maybe all the Light cares about is whether or not I live more fully in the Light...." She eventually finds a difficult and intriguing inner peace, concluding, "The world needs both Quakers and Marines. So does my marriage. And within myself, so do I." Photos.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* Henderson's memoir could be characterized by a gimmicky, high-concept sentence: "When a Quaker woman's military-chaplain husband is sent with the troops to Afghanistan just after the couple learns they can't have children, she sets off on a cross-country drive with their dog." At least that conveys that Henderson's vivid book records a journey. Checking her e-mail in California, yearning for a message from her husband, she reads of a neighborhood party back home that will end with smashing an Osama bin Laden pinata. That prompts her to recall her recent, unreasoning desire to see "something destroyed over there," which she realizes has been transformed into the question, "Shouldn't we strive not to give in to that part of ourselves?" As she untwists her reactions to being a pacifist in a nation at war, she doesn't deny ambivalent and sometimes contradictory feelings. Pacifism, she shows, is no simplistic "anti" reaction but a way of daily living. She recounts her childhood Quakerism, young-adult religious experimentation, and mature return to early faith, and as she does also tells the heart-wrenching tale of trying to bear a child, which involved exhausting and expensive treatments and, for a time, even threatened her marriage. Like pacifism, fertility is a goal that may seem simple but isn't necessarily easily attained. Henderson's complex, compelling, timely story will haunt her readers. Patricia Monaghan
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Seal Press (September 29, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1580050980
• ISBN-13: 978-1580050982
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,878,974 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Driving toward inner peace in a "bubble of white noise", October 31, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Driving by Moonlight: A Journey Through Love, War, and Infertility (Paperback)

I live three miles from the Pentagon, less than an hour's walk on a sunny fall afternoon. Sixties liberal that I am though, I saw it only as a destination for peace marches. But when I woke up the morning of Sept. 12, 2001, with smoke still seeping through my open windows from the terrorist attack the day before, my perceptions had undergone a sea change. "The military is there to protect us," it dawned on me, "and someone's just blown a hole in that protection."

With my former convictions in disarray, it's no wonder I was drawn to this memoir in which the author suffered a similar shock to her pacifist beliefs. "Does being a pacifist mean...it's wrong even to defend yourself?" she asks. "On TV, I saw that huge plane magically pushing its way into and through a New York skyscraper, metamorphosing along the way into a blooming poppy of fire. I watched tiny, fragile human figures standing at those broken windows a hundred floors up, someone's daughter, someone's son, all peering down and hoping against hope, not knowing there was no hope. Every time I see them, recall them, I want to seize something, anything, on the other side of the world and smash the hell out of it. I know I won't be satisfied until I see whole towns on the other side of the world destroyed. I horrify myself. I want to run away from myself."

Henderson does "run away." Once she has hugged her Marine chaplain husband goodby, as he ships out for Afghanistan days after September 11, she sets off to drive across the country in a '78 Corvette with only her German shepherd to keep her company. But though she leaves the scenes of carnage behind, she can't escape from her churning emotions, her fear for her husband, or the contradictions that beset her mind. The conflict between her normal pacifism and her instinctual desire for vengeance is not the only discord in Henderson's life: She's a Quaker pacifist married to a Lutheran pastor and Marine chaplain. She parts ways with her husband as well on the subject of religious beliefs -- her growing rejection of the belief that Jesus was God incarnate. Most poignantly, her desire to have a baby increases with every tick of her biological clock, while her husband -- afraid he would follow in his father's footsteps and be an inadequate parent -- doesn't want children at all.

While Driving by Moonlight is a "road" book, it is much more than that. The story of Henderson's trip is vivid, funny and at times harrowing (as she nearly becomes trapped in a sudden blizzard). The family, friends and strangers she encounters along her way are memorable characters, well portrayed in her hands. But her story is not just that of her journey from one coast to another, but of her journey through life. Fortunately for the reader, the author not only weaves her trip and her life complications together adroitly, but she seems utterly lacking in pretensions and leavens her serious themes with delicious humor. I couldn't stop laughing when she told how she and her dubious husband decided to renovate their only bathroom -- without the help of a plumber. (A perfect start to Sunday during the time the bathroom was ripped out was to pick up the paper from the doorstep, drive to the nearest museum and settle down in the still empty rest room.) Though I read mostly fiction, I found this memoir as engrossing as any novel.

While I originally picked up the book because the author mirrored the reactions I'd had after September 11, I found myself becoming more engrossed in Henderson's life, in particular her struggle (sadly unsuccessful) to become pregnant, which meant fighting to convince her reluctant husband to agree to each round of infertility treatment, and finally to in vitro fertilization, or as Henderson describes it, "a final Hail Mary roll of the dice."

Henderson ends with as many contradictions as she started. Planning the trip "gave me the illusion that I controlled my life," she writes, an illusion of which she was quickly disabused as weather closes the road in front of her. But the act of driving itself, immersed in the white noise of the Corvette's engine has become a form of "centering prayer" and she is learning to live -- as all of us must -- with uncertainty. Meanwhile she drives on. Darkness falls and her headlights show nothing but the side of the road. But tomorrow, "the moon will slowly begin opening like an eye, widening to reflect the Light and illuminate the darkness before slowly closing again. Way opens, way closes, and then way opens again, circling around and around as I drive on, the moon and the starry patchwork of constellations all turning and tinkling in the solar wind."

I felt enlightened and enriched for having read this beautifully written and honest account of another woman's struggle to come to terms with the contradictions in her life.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Great Ride Through Tough Questions, October 30, 2003

By 

R. Corrie (Alexandria, VA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Driving by Moonlight: A Journey Through Love, War, and Infertility (Paperback)

This beautifully written, funny, wrenching and ultimately heartening memoir of a road trip in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 is a rare find. Author Kristin Henderson certainly succeeds in bringing back that time of fear and confusion but what got me was her exploration of connections between the human urges to war and procreation. At the time her husband shipped out to Afghanistan, Henderson was struggling to come to terms with infertility--losing her dream of being a mother and the physical presence of her husband at the same time. Her road trip allowed her the time and solitude to sort through the pain and emotional confusion of all this while, as she says, giving her the illusion of forward motion. We are the lucky beneficiaries of this 'escape plan' as Henderson alternates her experiences on the road--often hooty, always interesting--with recollections of divisions in her self and her marriage over religion, and of the medical and emotional trials of fertility treatment. Reading this wonderful book, I sensed that Henderson, with her trusty dog Rosie at her side, would find the peace she was looking for and I was happy to be along for the vicarious ride.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A wonderful journey, December 19, 2003

By 

a reader in Milwaukee (milwaukee, wi United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Driving by Moonlight: A Journey Through Love, War, and Infertility (Paperback)

The first time I read something written by Kristin was in the Washington Post Sunday Magazine almost a year ago. I was drawn in by the subject matter and stayed because I really liked how and what she wrote. Since then I've become a huge fan, even going so far as to send my father-in-law to one of her readings for an autographed copy of this book.

I knew a bit about Kristen's personal history from her article in the Washington Post Sunday Magazine about her chaplain husband (available on her website at www.kristinhenderson.com) and this book tells us even more.

I loved this book! Kristin takes (what I think are) enormous risks - opening up and telling the world about her relationships with her family, her struggles with infertility, Rosie and the Vette.

Do yourself a favor and get then read this book! And get a copy for someone you love.