Pilgrimage on a Steel Ride: A Memoir about Men and Motorcycles

The author describes his motorcycle journey through Minnesota to the Alaskan Highway, recalling the events in his life that have made him the man he is today, from the tough cop who saved him from delinquency to wrangling a dogsled through the Alaskan wilderness, and other challenges he has faced on the road of life. 35,000 first printing.

Lyrical and pleasing reflections on machinery, midlife crisis, and sundry other matters. Not long ago Paulsen, a Newbury Honor author of books for children, as well as books for adults (Eastern Sun, Western Moon, 1993, etc.), turned 57 and discovered he had a heart ailment. He also discovered, he writes, that he is a man, in a time when it has become anachronistic to be masculine. To avert the horror of growing old, cuddly, and debilitated, Paulsen went out and bought a Harley-Davidson motorcycle, shopping for which turned out to be a challenge--for a new bike, he learned, he'd have to pay a small fortune and then wait three years for delivery. Arming himself with a used machine, he took to the road, making his way from New Mexico to Alaska and back again, celebrating the freedom afforded him by the Harley-as-extension-of-self. The book that resulted from his trip is really a series of loosely connected essays. One treats the curious career of George Armstrong Custer, whom Paulsen seems intent on rehabilitating. Writing in a Hemingwayesque turn, he takes the line that, while it is politically incorrect to express respect for the doomed general, it is difficult not to admire his courage, and in the end it could be said that he was given his measure of fame--which is more than most men are given. Another essay explores the American worship of know-how, the almost religious aspect of being a mechanic that does not seem to exist in other countries. Still another deals with the myriad ways there are to meet one's maker on the back of a motorcycle, crushed by an errant piece of livestock or splattered by a road-hogging RV. These meditations don't quite add up to a full-tilt memoir, but they make a nice entertainment all the same. (Author tour) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

In his previous autobiographical odyssey, Eastern Sun, Winter Moon (LJ 2/15/93), Paulsen looked backward at his life. Here he looks at the present and sees a 57-year-old man with a heart problem and a gnawing discontent. Having had an enduring "love affair with two-wheeled vehicles" and a desire to get a Harley and make a long "run," Paulsen buys his Harley and with a friend takes a run from New Mexico to Alaska. Along the way, he ruminates about playing poker, the Zen of a good motorcycle mechanic, and the Canadian prairie. He copes with changing weather, seagulls flying into the bike, the unpaved portions of the Alaska highway, and motor-home drivers, for whom he has little use. You do not have to be a fan of long runs and Harleys to enjoy this. Recommended for public libraries.?David Schau, Kanawha Cty. P.L., Charleston, W. Va.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.