Travel Writing [Audio Cassette]

Ferry (Author), Peter (Author), Reader: To be announced (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 4, 2008

Travel Writing takes listeners on fascinating journeys, both geographical and psychological, and delves into the notion that the line between fact and fiction is often negotiable.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Debut novelist Ferry builds his quietly tricky tale around an English teacher's amateur investigation into a traffic fatality. Driving home from work, narrator Pete Ferry pulls up beside a car being erratically driven; Pete considers taking action, but before he can, the car crashes into a lamp post, killing Lisa Kim, the young driver. The event haunts Pete, a high school English teacher and occasional travel writer, and he soon neglects his professional duties as he looks into who Lisa was and why she died. Pete is so obsessed with his quarry that he does not notice that his relationship with live-in girlfriend Lydia is failing, though he does turn up leads to Lisa's heroin connection and a sinister psychiatrist. Or perhaps not: Pete addresses much of his narrative to his English class, and it is not clear whether the reader is meant to believe that the car accident and ensuing intrigues have actually happened, or if Pete has invented them to teach his students a lesson about storytelling. The result is a novel that, for all the cleverness of its construction, is also earnest, engrossing and affecting. (Aug.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From School Library Journal

Adult/High School—Ferry takes readers on a storyteller's journey. As a high school English teacher and part-time travel writer, he uses fictionalized situations to engage his students' interest, and readers can never quite be sure whether he is telling them about real or fictitious events. After witnessing a fatal car accident, which Ferry believes he could have prevented, he finds himself drawn into the story of Lisa Kim, the victim. The book moves back and forth between Ferry's life and past and his connections, real or imagined, to Lisa Kim. The author does not follow chronological order or standard format in his story line, but instead moves between the past and present to allow readers a glimpse into the impact they have on others. Or do they? When the narrator delivers the line "what I'm saying is that very often illusion is all we have," it does make readers wonder if they have been taken for a ride. This book provides a unique, stylish, and challenging read for AP literature students and/or those interested in creative writing and the writing process.—Janet Melikian, Central High School East, Fresno, CA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Audio Cassette
• Publisher: Blackstone Audiobooks, Inc.; Unabridged edition (August 4, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1433243946
• ISBN-13: 978-1433243943
• Product Dimensions: 6.2 x 4.4 x 2.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,422,383 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Telling Stories, October 8, 2009

By 

Sam Sattler (Spring, Texas) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Travel Writing (Paperback)

Peter Ferry is a storyteller and his debut novel, "Travel Writing," is one terrific story. The novel's dedication is the first clue that Ferry has chosen to write something a little different to mark his first time out. It will not take long for alert readers to notice that the three people to whom the book is dedicated have the same names as three of its main characters, nor that the author himself is the novel's narrator. Soon enough, the reader is wondering what is real and what is not - and that is half the fun of "Travel Writing."

Fictional Peter Ferry (as well as real life Peter Ferry) is an English teacher who makes a few bucks on the side writing newspaper travel pieces. He is also a born storyteller and he motivates and inspires his high school students by example, often telling them on-the-fly stories in class, rather than by preaching the mechanics of writing. All in all, Ferry is pretty content with his life, but all of that changes one winter night when he witnesses a car crash that claims the life of a young Asian woman.

Only moments before her death, Ferry had noticed the woman's erratic driving before she pulled alongside him at a stoplight. The two make brief eye contact as Ferry realizes the woman is either too drunk or too ill to drive safely but before he can intervene she speeds away to her death. Realizing that his was the last face the woman would ever see, Ferry becomes haunted by his inaction, always wondering if he could have saved Lisa Kim's life by acting more quickly and decisively.

This is the story Peter Ferry chooses to tell his high school English class, a story of one man's personal obsession with the death of a woman he never knew in life but comes to know intimately after her death. Having failed to save her life, Ferry is determined to find out why she died. He is so obsessed with solving the mystery of Lisa Kim that he is soon neglecting his work and his live-in girlfriend to the degree that he is in danger of losing both. As Ferry comes closer and closer to the truth about what happened that winter night, readers will find themselves intrigued by the truths he uncovers.

But did any of this actually happen or is it all just an exercise being used by Peter Ferry to make a point about creative writing to his English class? Just about the time one begins to forget that Ferry is a writing teacher, the author yanks him back to his classroom to discuss the story with his young students. Further complicating things is the book's narrative structure. The story is told from the past to the present with flashbacks and related travel pieces interspersed throughout, a choice that further helps to blur truth and which leads to the novel's clever ending.

Did it happen? I found that I was not sure, and that I really did not care much, because I enjoyed the story for what it is, just as Mr. Ferry's English class is so intrigued by it. I did have great fun along the way trying to decide whether or not the story is just part of Mr. Ferry's lesson plan or if it really happened to him. But, in the end, despite all the fun readers will have with it, this is a book with a serious message about personal responsibility and how far that responsibility extends into the lives of perfect strangers.

"Travel Writing" is a remarkable first novel which, at least for now, moves into my 2009 Top Ten.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Intense Metanarrative, August 31, 2009

By 

Kevin L. Nenstiel "omnivore" (Kearney, Nebraska) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Travel Writing (Paperback)

Peter Ferry, teacher and writer, offers his first novel, starring Peter Ferry, teacher and writer. When Ferry the character witnesses a traffic accident that kills a young woman he's never met, he grows increasingly entangled in her world. She becomes the object of his intense fascination, to the point that he alienates his friends, jeopardizes his job, and loses his career, and starts to lose his love. But then he discovers a secret somebody else has been dying to keep.

Hanging his story on this thin spine of psychological mystery, Ferry the author spins a complex yarn of a man whose lifelong struggle against responsibility comes into conflict with his soul yearning to grow up. The boundaries between author and story grow fuzzy, and the novel challenges you to guess how much of what you've just read is really fiction. The metanarrative becomes menacing when he starts to suggest that maybe there's more than a novel here.

I have to confess, I don't usually like metafiction. It's usually mere academic puffery from MFA candidates who want you to know what serious artists they are. Not so here. Ferry, whether character or writer, is a knot of conflict that only works itself out through storytelling. The only way he can decipher himself is by telling us his story. And the story he tells brings us into a life grown bizarre behind its revelations.

This difficult but rewarding novel probably won't become a breakout hit. The author menaces the audience too much for a mass following, and this story is so book-bound that it will never be made into a movie. But this is the kind of literature that makes me love reading. And it's the kind of book that publishers push out there because they love books. Smart, funny, grim, and surreal, this book will leave you scratching your head in the best possible way.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Loved it!, August 20, 2008

By 

Tricia O'Connor "book fiend" (Indianapolis, IN) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Travel Writing (Hardcover)

I loved this book. It's funny, thought-provoking, and like the title says, it's like traveling around the world from your chair. The meat of the story takes place in the Chicago area - it's part-drama, part-mystery/detective and part-love story. I highly recommend it!