Author: Rita Golden Gelman
Length: 320 pages
Tales of a Female Nomad
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Description
“At the age of forty-eight, on the verge of a divorce, Rita Golden Gelman left an elegant life in L.A. to follow her dream of travelling the world, connecting with people in cultures all over the globe.
In 1986, Rita sold her possessions and became a nomad, living in a Zapotec village in Mexico, sleeping with sea lions on the Galapagos Islands, and residing everywhere from thatched huts to regal palaces. She has observed orangutans in the rain forest of Borneo, visited trance healers and dens of black magic, and cooked with women on fires all over the world. Rita’s example encourages us all to dust off our dreams and rediscover the joy, the exuberance, and the hidden spirit that so many of us bury when we become adults.”
Janet Dore –
“As an observer, I am particularly interested in watching women, married, divorced, single. So many of them are trapped in lives they think they must live, in roles they have come to resent, with little joy and no laughter. They’ve “settled.” They’ve compromised. They’ve learned to adjust.”
Being that I consider Rita to be a kindred spirit, I thought for sure this book would sit at the top of my stack of all-time favorites. Although the details are different, we have walked a very similar path. During my marriage, travel was my oxygen…during it’s ending and after my divorce, it fostered my authenticity. But, I, like many other reviewers, found much of the book to be somewhere on the spectrum between mildly irritating to downright annoying.
Why? Well, if I’m being totally honest, the writing is just not that great. At this point in my reading life, I’m pretty intolerant of anything less than excellent writing.
There were several standout issues for me:
1) The book felt more like an overly detailed, yet simplistic, travel diary. I’m not interested in reading a list of names of who came to dinner or stopped by for a visit. Give me substance please!
2) I was frustrated by Rita’s lack of tenderness and raw emotion. I’ve been through the same metamorphosis as her…it’s a brutal transition where you often resort to the fetal position. Rawness between women should be shared so we feel a kinship!
3) There was an mild arrogance to Rita that I found mildly distasteful.
In all fairness, writing the kind of book that would have deeply resonated with me would have been a brutal, soul wrenching experience and much easier said than done.