Customer Reviews

Travels With Lizbeth

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I live in Austin and so I am familiar with a lot of the places mentioned in the book. Austin is currently (and was becoming at the time of publication) an economically prosperous city with it's much touted high-tec industries and growing affluence. Of course not everyone benefits from the growing economy and this book shows that there are some that do not benefit at all. The experiences of living on the streets of Austin and the southwest with a dog are told with great humor and wit. The fact that this book is very well written suggests that Lars Eighner doesn't fit the usual homeless stereotype of being ignorant, uneducated and useless to society. In fact in the book Eighner mentions having regular job before his circumstances changed. It does make one wonder how many other people are out there who go through similar experiences in life. anyway, this book is definitely worth a read.

Lars Eighner is a better writer and a better story-teller than most of the people filling books in bookstores and lying on Oprah these days. But those are not the only reasons you should read the book. The primary reason is because, unlike almost anyone else you will meet in public life -- authors, professors, officials, savants, celebrities -- Eighner is an intelligent, honest, humane, authentic and _original_ person. Reading _Travels with Lizbeth_ is like reading _Walden_: there's some kind of mind on the other side of the page, a mind which unlike the ciphers on television is awake and can see things. Including, as he says towards the end of the book, "all the way to the bottom", because he's been to visit more than once while most of the rest of us were pretending it wasn't there. (As the social fabric continues to decay we might want to get to know something about its geography.) I am reminded of Whitman's "Who touches this book touches a man." And a dog as well. Buy, beg, borrow or steal this book. It might wake you up a little. And if you're already awake it'll help you to know that there's someone else out there, across the night.

This is one of my favorite memoirs. It reads less like an autobiography than a collection of related short stories, each one witty, poignant, and carefully drawn.

It also serves as bracing lesson, not so much about "homelessness", but about how even an uncommonly intelligent and capable, if somewhat non-standard, person can slip through what's left of our social safety net and end up on the street. As Eighner tells it here, if it weren't for a couple of strokes of random good fortune, he would not have been a position to put a roof over his head again, much less publish this book.

For those wondering what Eighner is up to now, he's still writing. Examples of his recent and not-so-recent work can be found on his website, which can be easily found by putting "Lars Eighner" in a search engine. As for the reviewer who felt cheated because the book did not offer sufficient details of Eighner's sex life, there's a link to Eighner's erotic writing on the site as well -- that ought to satisfy your cruelly frustrated needs.

Engaging and largely unsentimental account of being one of the itenerant homeless, with the added complication of having a dog. The author does not anthropomorphize Lizbeth which is the best decision he could make. Rather than a heartwarming story straight out of "Touched by An Angel" we get a complex picture of his world: the various hitchhikers, Good Samaritans, petty bureacrats and lost souls who, through reasons besides simple irresponsiblity, happen to find themselves on the streets. Luckily, the chronicle has a happy ending, but it feels earned and not fake.

I don't often read non-fiction, but I was enchanted by Travels with Lizbeth by Lars Eighner. It's about three years in the life of a homeless man and his dog. Before being on the streets he was a writer/mental health worker (he wrote gay porn, among other things, to make money). His style is really remarkable-mannered and wry. It's as though he were educated at Oxford and one day found himself on the streets of Austin, TX without any prospects to speak of. His adventures are poignant, funny, tragic, and even occasionally sexy. You'll walk away with an appreciation for a category of homelessness, the situationally homeless, that often gets overlooked. We're always quick to categorize people on the streets as either: substance abusers, mentally ill, or simply homeless by choice. But some people just lose it. Eighner loses it, but ultimately makes the most of it. When I finished the book, I just wanted to send him money in case his luck had changed again.

I don't often read non-fiction, but I was enchanted by Travels with Lizbeth by Lars Eighner. It's about three years in the life of a homeless man and his dog. Before being on the streets he was a writer/mental health worker (he wrote gay porn, among other things, to make money). His style is really remarkable-mannered and wry. It's as though he were educated at Oxford and one day found himself on the streets of Austin, TX without any prospects to speak of. His adventures are poignant, funny, tragic, and even occasionally sexy. You'll walk away with an appreciation for a category of homelessness, the situationally homeless, that often gets overlooked. We're always quick to categorize people on the streets as either: substance abusers, mentally ill, or simply homeless by choice. But some people just lose it. Eighner loses it, but ultimately makes the most of it. When I finished the book, I just wanted to send him money in case his luck had changed again

IBID to what everybody already said about this Texas classic. I just wanted to say the chapter "On Institutional Parasitism" (about the man who hangs around the University of Texas --stealing food, taking showers, etc) was one of the funniest chapters I've read anywhere.

This is an entertaining memoir of Lars Eighner's three years of mixed homelessness and hitch-hiking with his dog, Lizbeth. Mr. Eighner has a way of capturing the true craziness and Catch-22's of our welfare system. His characterizations, internal reflection and his take on the events around him are eccentric and unique.

One of his takes on the Texas welfare system is as follows. It had me in stitches:

"In Texas, a person can not qualify for food stamps unless he or she does not really need them. A person who truly needs food stamps can not be eligible to receive them. To get food stamps, a person must have all to him or herself a functioning kitchen; if the kitchen is shared, then all who share the kitchen must, as a group, qualify for food stamps. To prove that you have the kitchen, you must have a rent receipt, which opens the question of where you got the money to pay the rent. If you can not pay the rent then you must get a written statement from the landlord that he allows you to live rent-free, which statement the landlord will not give you if he is properly advised, because it prejudices his case in the event he wants to collect back rent or to evict you for non-payment."

This book is comprised of three year's of Mr. Eighner's anecdotes of dumpster diving, his attempts at publishing is pornographic writing, crazy drivers who pick him up hitch-hiking, crazy friends and tragic situations. The anecdotes are enlightening, sardonic and humorous. Finally, Mr. Eighner is able to sell enough of his writing (gay porn) to get off the streets - at least for a while.

I highly recommend this book.

I guess I was comming from the (reading Jack Kerouac) direction and was just looking for a good realistic travel novel. But what a surprise, what a story and a writer. I've read a lot of dissappointing "on the street" flavoured "I'm roughing it for the moment, while I write" tales obviously written from the security of a budget/career/home to go back to. This stuff is real, it sinks in that Lars does not have a way out and is in it for good, he is on no joy ride yet carries an incredible adventure. He is one of the most Human characters I have ever read. My opinion on homeless people has certainly changed. Unfortunately its going to be even harded to find any downbeat writing with any heart or street credibility after this.

Lars Eighner does a spectacular job of storytelling: he is witty, descriptive, and thorough. It is not only a book about homelessness, but about materialism, transendentalsim, and the quirks of a society and government proclaiming itself "by the people and for the people" but without adequate welfare to support the people. However, this isn't a book to casually read to pass the time. It is a story, true, but it is also very much a informational document, and should be read not just for pleasure but for enlightenment on subjects that Lars knows so very well.