Incognito Street: How Travel Made Me a Writer [Paperback]

Barbara Sjoholm (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 12, 2006

Barbara Sjoholm arrived in London in the winter of 1970 at the age of twenty. Like countless young Americans in that tumultuous time, she wanted to leave a country at war and explore Europe; a small inheritance from her grandmother gave her the opportunity. Over the next three years, she lived in Barcelona, hitchhiked around Spain, and studied at the University of Granada. She managed a sourvenir shop in the Norwegian mountains and worked as a dishwasher on the Norwegian Coastal Steamer. Set on becoming a writer, she read everything from Colette to Dickens to Borges, changing her style and her subject every few weeks, and gradually found her voice.
Incognito Street is the story of a young woman's search for artistic, political, and sexual identity while digesting the changing world around her. As she sheds the ghosts of her childhood, we come to know her quiet yet adventurous spirit. In moments that are tender, funny, bewildering, and suspenseful, we see an evocative look at Europe through the blossoming writer’s maturing eyes.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Sjoholm (The Pirate Queen, and Blue Windows as pen name Barbara Wilson) shares the story of how she became a writer. Barely 20 in 1970, with a small inheritance and a dream of becoming a writer, Sjoholm left boyfriend and America behind for a two-month ramble in Europe. As she wandered London, and then Paris and Barcelona, she was torn between living what she pictured was the writer's life—partying and bar-hopping—and actually writing. Suspecting that she hadn't lived enough to have anything to write about, she distracted herself with friends and lovers and marvelous adventures. When her travelmate Laura arrived, they attempted lesbian sex, but couldn't quite figure out what to do—"there was no lesbian Kama Sutra to refer to"—so they stayed friends instead. Sjoholm continued traveling, discovering other regions of Spain as well as Norway and Morocco. In the end, feeling more comfortable about herself as a writer, she returned to a more sexually liberated America than she'd left behind. She soon cofounded Seal Press, which has published most of her work ever since. Aspiring writers will be encouraged by Sjoholm's modest beginnings and honest writing style. (Nov.)
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From Booklist

Twenty in 1970, Sjoholm flew from L.A. to London to begin two months in Europe. To friends and family, she always seemed to be going away. In this entertaining if somewhat overlong memoir, she says that was the way she liked it. She took every opportunity to experience someplace new and different. She believed travel would help her grow as a writer, but the pleasure of traveling most appealed to her. Restless, insatiably curious, she wanted to do anything and everything. She reached London in winter; it was "thrillingly foggy and damp." Then it was off to Paris, which offered too much of a good thing: "In Paris it was almost impossible not to desire more." Barcelona, Valencia, Granada, Seville, Cordoba, Madrid, and Rome followed. She wound up in Norway, working as a maid and then a "ship girl" (a glorified title for a dishwasher) on a cargo and passenger ship, Kong Olav. She learned about other cultures, about what it means to be a writer, and most of all, about herself. June Sawyers
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Seal Press (October 12, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1580051723
• ISBN-13: 978-1580051729
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,719,878 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars An interesting exercise in memory, March 15, 2009

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Walter Mason "jolly seeker" (Sydney, Australia) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Incognito Street: How Travel Made Me a Writer (Paperback)

This author intrigues me. I was enthralled by her memoir "Blue Windows" about her mother and Christian science - published under another name.

This book is fascinating because she is describing journeys she took years ago, while still a young woman. It is more an exercise in travel memory than in travel writing as we usually experience it.

I liked it - it was well-paced, and as a novice travel-writer myself it inspired me and gave me ideas while I was on the road.