Not Now, Voyager: A Memoir [Paperback]

Lynne Sharon Schwartz (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 13, 2010

Since Marco Polo’s explorations and Montaigne’s travels, a lively dialogue has persisted about travel’s pros and cons — its excitement, novelties, perils, and misadventures. Lynne Sharon Schwartz joins this dialogue with a memoir that raises serious and amusing questions.
Not Now, Voyager takes us on a voyage of self-discovery as the author traces how travel shaped her. She visits Miami Beach as an adolescent with an aunt and uncle and confronts the sensation of not belonging; she goes to Rome as a young woman and ponders the difference between ignorance and innocence; she ventures to Jamaica and witnesses acute political and social unrest; and she takes a family road trip to Montreal and watches her daughters come to their own startling realizations.
In this memoir, Schwartz’s history takes on new shapes, and her feelings about travel change as she does. Her story exemplifies a mode of travel: the mind on a journey, pausing, sometimes by design, sometimes by serendipity, lingering, backtracking, but always on the move.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Schwartz is an elegant writer with a nimble intellect, with an incisive awareness of how human encounters shape journeys more than sightseeing itineraries do." —The Seattle Times

"As Schwartz understands, it is not the outer voyage but the inner one that matters." —Los Angeles Times

"Charmingly idiosyncratic." —Kirkus Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: Counterpoint; First Trade Paper Edition edition (April 13, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 158243588X
• ISBN-13: 978-1582435886
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,073,136 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Engaging, but rambling, May 29, 2010

By 

R. Wixson "Book Addict" (Portland, OR USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: Not Now, Voyager: A Memoir (Kindle Edition)

I decided to read this book because there are a plethora of pro-travel memoirs, but not many that suggest staying at home might be the best option. I found the book to be very well-written and engaging. It did tend to ramble at times and narrative did not always flow in a perfectly logical way. However, overall it was well worth reading.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Addicted to Travel, August 2, 2010

By 

takingadayoff "takingadayoff" (Las Vegas, Nevada) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

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This review is from: Not Now, Voyager: A Memoir (Paperback)

Lynne Sharon Schwartz's Not Now, Voyager (great title!) is both memoir and travel narrative. After decades of moving around the globe, she wonders if it's worth the bother. What do we get from travel? Is it just some sort of endurance course we struggle through to impress others? Does travel improve us or does it just make us smug? She considers writing an anti-travel polemic, but can't work up more than a temporary apathy to travel. She may not admit it outright, but she's addicted to travel, and no wonder.

In spite of her claimed distaste for travel, Schwartz has done more than her share. We find her in Rome, Greece, Miami, Mexico, Africa, Jamaica, as well as all over the US and Canada. One begins to suspect that if she was so weary of travel, she would stop. In the end, you might conclude that she dislikes the tedious parts of travel -- the hassle of airport security, the missed connections, the bad weather. Well sure, we all hate that, but that's the stuff that you tend to forget later, unless it was really spectacularly bad.

This short memoir is curiously structured like a trip, with departures near the beginning, recollections of "being there" in the middle of the book, and homecomings at the end.

Schwartz admits that her disillusionment with travel may be a passing mood. Memories of her mother singing sultry songs onstage in Catskills, of her friend Stanley Elkin's bizarre hotel soap obsession, of learning to speak Italian while in Rome make this a memoir that celebrates travel, or at least can't resist it. Protest all you want, Schwartz, I'll bet you're planning your next trip right now.

18 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A lively, important memoir, September 18, 2009

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Not Now, Voyager: A Memoir (Hardcover)

The pros and cons of travel have persisted in society and this memoir asks many questions about travel, using the author's own travel experiences as examples. From her journey to Rome as a young woman to her worldwide observations of social and political change in third world countries to a family road trip to Montreal, this assessment of travel and its impact on many levels makes for a lively, important memoir.