A Thousand Roads Home
By: Carmel Harrington / Narrated By: Jill Crawford, Frank Grimes
Length: 10 hrs and 10 mins
Hated it, wondered about it, considered it, was moved by it, wound up loving it!
Okay okay! I’m a jerk, and I’ll readily admit it...!
I’d juuuuuust finished listening to Where the Watermelons Grow where a young girl is danged near crushed with the weight of the adult failures going on around her—unfair to that poor child!
And then I got into A Thousand Roads Home where we meet main character, heroine of the story, Ruth and we’re introduced to some of the “quirky” things she does: Counts steps, is toooo blunt, panics and has meltdowns.
Ahhhhh, says I to myself, we’re to root for a woman on the spectrum as she tries to navigate a world that has no understanding of what it’s like to be her. Okay, I can get behind that.
Except for one tiiiiiiiiny thing—she has a little 10-year old son.
Don’t see the problem?
Well, HE’S the one who has to take care of Ruth as she spazzes about her numbers coming out all right, as she can’t meet anyone’s gaze, as she falls to the ground and curls up in a fetal position cuz she’s been overstimulated. Nope, I wasn’t crossing my fingers for Ruth, I was damning her for making her child (10-years old!) responsible for her wellbeing. I know I know I know. Everybody has the right to have a child, but if you can’t take care of yourself, for the love of GOSH ALMIGHTY, do not bring a child into this world to take over care and responsibilities.
…but then I kept listening…
…and then darned if author Carmel Harrington didn’t win me over…!
I think it’s cuz I came to love Tom, Dr. O’Grady, so much. I could see how the agony of grief could make a person shun all memories, all places, all former friends. To choose homelessness to avoid it all, to be able to sit under the sky and not be closed in by negative energy bouncing back from walls that close in on you.
This is in direct contrast to the homelessness that Ruth and DJ suffer when they’re evicted after their landlord decides to sell their home, and they have no options. It’s not about memories, it’s about there being no options available in what they can afford. Hand-to-mouth, paycheck-to-paycheck, Ruth has never been late with the Rent. But now she and DJ are in scummy emergency living accommodations, and Ruth starts utilizing her “quirks” to make life better for not only DJ, but she’s choosing to kinda uplift the squalid little hotel’s other societal misfits as well. She can bring order to the common kitchen, she can clean in a frenzy and help all find a study room for the kids who need a place to do homework.
But DJ is an angry boy (And I don’t blame him…), and a one-off incident has him meeting Tom. Tom talks him out of doing something desperately stupid, but through it all he never talks down to DJ and neither does he preach to him, nor does he ignore the boy’s feelings. DJ feels heard, and when they run into each other again, a bond and a friendship is formed. This goes on until Ruth comes upon them, and then we discover that Ruth and Dr. O’Grady share a common history. He was there through Ruth’s pregnancy, and he and his wife supported her when nobody else did. That he’s chosen homelessness and poverty about does Ruth in, but she’s soon meeting with him, bringing him sandwiches, and in her blunt way is telling him he stinks… as she carefully hands him new clothes.
I did enjoy that things weren’t rolled out, all nice and easy. It took time for things to develop, for layers of both Tom and Ruth’s stories to be peeled back (Over 10 hours, remember!). The people who were disappointed in the story felt it was far too tidy and was wrapped up in a bow too much, but I felt I deserved the gift wrapping (Considering how shrill and angry I felt at the beginning). After LOAthing Ruth so much, I deserved to see how her blunt statements could be sources of disgust to one camp, but sources of raucous laughter to another less exalted camp. I could see where Ruth could find a sense of Tribe. And I deserved to see DJ get some consideration as time went by, as the story unfolded, so that I could respectfully remember that kids with tough childhoods often grow up to be more resilient than those less challenged.
Ahhh, now to the narration! Keep in mind that my usual listening speed is anywhere from x1.3 speed to x1.8. And now keep in mind that this story takes place in Ireland, by an Irish author, WITH two Irish narrators…
You wanna feel totally at sea for a while just try listening to TWO Irish brogues at x1.6 speed. Oh good golly gosh! I had to back the speed down to x1.1 (I don’t do x1 just to be obnoxious) posthaste! But Ruth’s story, as brilliantly narrated by Jill Crawford, and Tom’s story, as capably (No, not brilliantly) narrated by Frank Grimes, had me jacking the speed back up to x2 because I just neeeeeded to know how things were going to turn out. Both Crawford and Grimes did a wide variety of characters, and even tho’ I thought Grimes a trifle colorless in his tones every now and then, the man did NOT skimp on the sadness. And if there’s one thing Dr. Tom O’Grady is, it’s sad. So well done, the pair of you!
Tho yeh yeh yeh Harrington had us going for a Happily Ever After from the get-go, she threw in enough of the shame and pain, and of the outright danger, of being homeless. Whether a character was living with the indignities heaped upon her for having to utilize social services to procure a single room for her and her child, or a character was either invisible or a target of wrath and misunderstanding for being one who sleeps rough on the streets, shame and danger were part and parcel of this story. I wouldn’t go so far as to say it’s changed my view of homelessness (I’d say A Streetcat Named Bob did that… even tho’ I’d never thought of being on the streets as EVER a particularly good thing), but it has changed me in that I now question background stories of those I see on the streets now (We’re in an area with a LOT of homeless!).
And it’s now gotten me offering the: God Be With You/God Is With You prayer that I’ve always offered to homeless animals.
I told you! I’m a schmuck! I can always see the worth in animals.
But people are not so kind…
Nope. It takes, say, a book like A Thousand Roads Home with its well-crafted heroes, its slowly evolving plot, to FINALLY see the humanity in humans.
Who knew?
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