1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
"Road Trip of the Mind", January 10, 2001
I really enjoyed this book because of all the hope and sensitivity it presented in its short 127 pages. It's one of the most touching stories I have read in a long while. It was a nice change. "Wyoming" tells the story of a mother and her young 9 year old son, Roy, who travel together by car through the south and mid-west United States during the 1950's. There trip to "Wyoming" exists as a state of mind rather than an actual place. The story is told entirely in dialogue, where they both discuss their lives, hopes and dreams.
I thought the questions the son asks on the trip were the same type all children ask when we are young, inquisitive, and innocent. We view the world at that age as a wonderful place full of surprises and many mysteries.. The author brought this out in little Roy in a wonderful way. This mother and son were two people you would really want to know. When Roy asks questions like: "Mom, when birds die, what happens to their souls?" or "What would happen if there was no sun?" and "Mom, after I die I want to come back as a flamingo" who could not love this little boy? For the short time it takes to read this wonderful story, it's more than worth the effort. Highly recommended!
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5 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Journeys in the heart, July 25, 2000
The state in the title of Barry Gifford's "Wyoming" is not the Cowboy State, but a state of mind. To the mother and son traveling together by car in the 1950s -- not on one trip but a series of trips over several years -- Wyoming represents sanctuary. It's a place where one can hide and never be found, where horses run in the open country and cool breezes blow, a good place to have a dog.
But they never go. Instead, Roy and his mother Kitty stick to the main roads, exploring swamps, roach-infested motels, Civil War graveyards and greasy spoons on the Gulf Coast. The purposes of their desultory journeys are not always clear, sometimes hurtling toward a shabby liaison, sometimes unfolding in the slow aimlessness of "concertina locomotion." The reader seldom knows the real destination, although the route always runs through an ambiguous landscape of lost dreams and poignant hopes.
The 34 vignettes sketch the bare outlines of Roy and Kitty, abandoned in Florida by an absent father with apparent mob ties. Roy dreams of being a baseball player, or an architect, or a fisherman; Kitty dreams of survival. *How* mother and son survive is never known, although the reader can deduce that Kitty occasionally leaves their various motel rooms at night.
The rhythms of the conversation are remarkably true and, although a story told completely in dialogue runs a very narrow gauge, the talk is keen and occasionally deeply poetic, such as this moment when young Roy talks about the human spirit:
"Your soul flies away like a crow when you die and hides in a cloud. When it rains that means the clouds are full of souls and some of 'em are squeezed out. Rain is the dead souls there's no more room for in heaven."
"Did Nanny tell you this, Roy?"
"No, it's just something I thought."
"Baby, there's no way I'll ever think about rain the same way again."
In the end, Roy and his mother speed past too quickly. We see them for a moment, and they are gone. No time for questions and, although it appears they never get to Wyoming, the reader is left hoping -- not knowing -- they found a place to land.
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