The Woman Who Walked to Russia: A Writer's Search for a Lost Legend FROM THE PUBLISHER
"From the moment Cassandra Pybus first heard about Lillian Alling's trek across North America, she couldn't get the story out of her mind. This is how it went: desperate with homesickness, Lillian Alling, a recent immigrant to the United States from the Soviet Union, haunted the New York Public Library, studying the atlas to establish the most direct route home to her native Russia. In the spring of 1927, aided only by a hand-drawn map, she started to walk." Pybus searched for clues about Alling. When her historical sleuthing yielded little, she set out on her own trek to trace Lillian's route through the wilderness of northwestern Canada and subarctic Alaska and Siberia. The result is a travel narrative that pieces together Alling's journey through the natural beauty and rich history of northwestern North America.
FROM THE CRITICS
Publishers Weekly
Australian writer Pybus takes a fitful journey through Canada and Alaska to follow in the footsteps of Lillian Alling, a Russian woman who, in 1927, walked from New York City to British Columbia, thinking that she could reach Siberia. What little Pybus knows about this compulsive pedestrian comes from vague newspaper clippings that describe her as nearly mute, emaciated and resembling a haunted person. Imbued with curiosity and kinship for her elusive quarry, Pybus sets out with her traveling companion, Gerry, a robust and prickly fellow Aussie, on a kind of feminist adventure. A cross between Thelma and Louise and the Two Fat Ladies, the two drive for hours on perilous roads, lodge in freezing cabins and spend a lot of time arguing mostly about food, the aspects of which (starvation, bulimia, nutrition and guilt) become a recurrent theme. The scenes with Gerry add spark to Pybus's often hopeless wild goose chase, and when they part ways, Gerry's sass is missed. However, in the face of constant disappointment and dead-ends, Pybus turns her attention to the world around her for inspiration, and her accounts of bear sightings, salmon spawning and weather patterns, along with her keen social interest in the logging and hunting industries create a textured portrait of a dazzling, dangerous landscape. In the end, a few small developments surface to add insight and meaning to Alling's trek, but the real journey is Pybus's, as she is a lively and likable wanderer. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
Library Journal
Pybus is an award-winning Australian writer with several nonfiction titles to her credit. She first became interested in Lillian Alling while traveling through British Columbia. According to a tome she discovered in a bookstore there, Alling was a Russian immigrant who, in 1927, made her way from New York to British Columbia, where she trekked north by foot along the telegraph line to Alaska, then traveled by boat to Siberia. If what little was known of Alling's trip was true, the woman had accomplished a feat of extraordinary daring. Pybus's interest in Alling led her to duplicate the woman's journey. Accompanied by a friend from her past, she followed the now-defunct telegraph line from Hazelton to Whitehorse by SUV. From there, she continued alone to Alaska, where, in an Internet cafe, she tracked down the names of two women who fit the Alling legend. Pybus's conclusions make for interesting reading, accompanied as they are by astute observations on the people and places of northwestern North America. Recommended for all libraries.-Mary V. Welk, Chicago Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
A strange and singular search for traces of a woman rumored to have walked from New York City to Siberia some 75 years ago. This much is (maybe) known: During the years 1927 and 1928, a woman by the name of Lillian Alling traveled north on foot along the underconstruction telegraph line that would eventually run through British Columbia, the Yukon, Alaska, and on to Siberia. Homesick for her native land, the diminutive Russian had walked from New York, scantily provisioned and clad. Hard facts concerning this far-north legend were just as scant, Australian writer Pybus learns. Pybus tries to settle a few questions before she leaves her Tasmanian home, plowing into genealogical and immigration records that lead her to decide Alling was probably a Jewish woman fleeing the traumatized shtetls of the Pale to end up on Manhattan's Lower East Side. Unimpressed, she headed home, but why, oh why, the author asks in her easy, agreeable voice, why walk? Why return to Russia at the dawn of two decades of Stalinist repression? Pybus embarks on a road trip following Alling's ever-fainter tracks. Her volatile, adventurous traveling companion Gerry provides much of the color commentary, offering advice like, "Ya gotta learn to take risks, Cassandra. Do the unexpected. Need to get your knickers in a twist." But Gerry has some food issues (she likes her laxatives), and her attitude begins to grate on her friend's nerves. While Gerry complains that "the trouble with this country is that it is so fucking empty," Pybus is enthralled by the landscape and its social/environmental history, which she serves forth in modest, irresistible portions. Along the way, the Alling legend proves incapable of sustainingscrutiny, and a more reasonable explanation emerges. The whole project is just unhinged enough to provide one of those gladdening, unself-consciously idiosyncratic travel narratives that are all too rare. Agent: Bella Pomer
Home
