Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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43 of 45 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A meaningful step in my own recovery, January 22, 2003
I find it interesting and sad how many people read this book looking for a story and insight about RUSH. I personally was deeply saddened after the Test for Echo tour to have heard about Neil's tragic losses, then just recently in December of 2002, a week before Christmas, I lost my 32 year old wife to cancer, and immediately have been thrust into a fraternity that nobody should have to join.A friend was kind enough to give me the book as a gift, and what a profound gift it was. As a lifelong fan of RUSH, Neil, and being a drummer myself, I took that book everywhere with me...it almost became my security. On planes, in my car, etc...until I finally forced myself to read the book closely. I feel much closer to Neil and certainly identify with his emotions, his feelings of anger, frustration, self-loathing, his "little baby soul" and everything else. Sure, the book delves too deep into certain things that may come across as "WHO CARES" to the reader, but that's the way grief is. You try to fill as much time with WHO CARES so you don't just sit around and cry and be miserable. I know, because I'm there RIGHT NOW. At this point, I'm almost feeling an additional loss from having finished the book. I agree that there was unfinished business in this book, but I can't help but feel happy for the guy for getting to the point of moving on. That was bittersweet reading for me and quite hard. Thanks Neil, for sharing your moving story, and making this reader feel and understand your pain, and through that process, anticipate and justify the feelings that I currently am going through. Well done.
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86 of 98 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The story of a man determined to save his own life., August 4, 2002
In the interest of full disclosure, I admit to being a long-time Rush fan, which by extension makes me a long-time fan of Neil Peart, the author of this work and drummer and lyricist for Rush. I had been aware of the tragedies that he and his family had experienced, and knew that it was the reason behind the several-year gap between albums (Test for Echo released in 1996. Rush's next album, Vapor Trails, would not release until 2002.). However, I didn't know the story of what brought Neil back to Rush, and thus Rush back to the world until I picked up this book at a concert in July of 2002.When Neil Peart lost his daughter to a traffic accident in the fall of 1997, and his wife to cancer (though, really, he knew it was a broken heart that took his wife), he was an empty man, a man with no reason to live, and little desire to do so. To save himself from the loneliness and the emptiness of a life alone, Peart took to the roads on his motorcycle on a journey that would cover Canada, much of the western United States, and parts of Central America. As he wrote: "My little baby soul was not a happy infant, of course, with much to complain about, but as every parent learns, a restless baby often calms down if you take it for a ride. I had learned my squalling spirit could be soothed the same way, by motion, and so I had decided to set off on this journey into the unknown. Take my little baby soul for a ride." This book is a compelling combination of travelogue, literary journal, sarcastic wit, and honest soul- searching. It provides a number of insights to a complex and intriguing man, one who would be interesting even without his fame. His humor, his pain, his reflections, his irritation, his impatience, his fear... All of it presented for the world to see, and to learn from. I recommend this book not only to Rush fans, but to anyone interested in seeing how someone survives the losses Peart experienced and emerges a whole person on the other side.
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142 of 176 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Decent travelogue, yet tedious and lacking in empathy, January 18, 2003
GHOST RIDER is written by Neil Peart, drummer and lyricist for the legendary hard rock music trio Rush. In 1997-98, Peart suffered a double tragedy when his daughter and wife died within ten months of each other. Left suddenly alone, Peart hit the road for fourteen months to escape his grief, and his travels are chronicled here.Anyone wishing for profound emotional empathy for Peart will not find many nuggets here. The majority of this book is just a travelogue by a man who is seeking to put his tragedies on the road behind him ... and nothing more. I was very disappointed in the first half of the book, initially because it took less than ten pages for Peart to reduce the lives of his wife and daughter to what is essentially a prologue. Then, when Peart hits the road, his thoughts and efforts are enveloped by his travels, which he shares in prodigious detail. He documents page after page of flora and fauna, road and riding conditions, sights and situations, meals, books and accommodations, only to include perhaps a single, glib sentence on his mental state, such as, "...suddenly I was in tears. One step forward, one step back." I became increasingly frustrated and annoyed because he cared more about describing his travels than communicating his grief, and I felt he never justified this discrepancy. If this had been written purely as a travelogue, I may have rated this higher, and it might be enjoyable to follow along his path with a road atlas and be satisfied with the journey. Peart puts in a lot of miles and goes to interesting places that typical travel books never go. But even this work is harmed by his wide antisocial streak, his ungracious celebrity, and a tangible disdain for Americans. By the halfway point, I had already had enough of Peart's weighty travel journal and the dearth of emotional honesty, and I had to force myself to finish the book. I had reached a much greater understanding of Peart's affection for his jailed friend Brutus than for his own family, and I found that to be the book's saddest reality of all. I really wanted to care about his plight, but he wasn't giving me an excuse to. He was coming across quite unsympathetically, and that's an enormous feat considering the gravity of the subject matter. Fortunately, the book's second half was an improvement, but by then I just wanted it to be over as quickly as possible. Ironically, his journey and healing improve noticeably whenever he's NOT on the road. In the cabin by the lake, he must confront the memories of his wife and daughter honestly and directly, and he is actually more willing to share these situations with the reader. It is in these moments that Neil Peart finally comes across with humanity, and we see him surrounded by his former life, as the widower, and as the father who had to bury his child. But these moments are all too fleeting. His insecurities put him on the road twice more in the second half, mostly shared through his neverending letters to Brutus. I skimmed paragraphs, places became indistinct, and I just grew weary of traveling with him. I was tired of his letter writing style, his forced levity, and the callousness with which he regards Gabrielle (whom he dated briefly) as "that woman," without rhyme or reason. GHOST RIDER is three quarters travel journal and maybe one quarter emotional insight, but it fails to find a synergy of the physical (the journey) and the spiritual (the healing). In the end, Peart's travels come to a screeching halt with his hastily-written equivalent of "...and I lived happily ever after." As he completed his journey, any happiness I might have had for him was tempered by the relief I felt, knowing that my reading journey was finally at an end. GHOST RIDER was my first exposure to Mr. Peart's books, but unless he writes a Rush biography, it will also be my last. Two and a half stars.
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