Queen of the Road: The True Tale of 47 States, 22,000 Miles, 200 Shoes, 2 Cats, 1 Poodle, a Husband, and a Bus With a Will of Its Own
Doreen Orion, 2008
Random House
272 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780767928533
Summary
A pampered Long Island princess hits the road in a converted bus with her wilderness-loving husband, travels the country for one year, and brings it all hilariously to life in this offbeat and romantic memoir.
Doreen and Tim are married psychiatrists with a twist: She’s a self-proclaimed Long Island princess, grouchy couch potato, and shoe addict. He's an affable, though driven, outdoorsman. When Tim suggests “chucking it all” to travel cross-country in a converted bus, Doreen asks, “Why can’t you be like a normal husband in a midlife crisis and have an affair or buy a Corvette?” But she soon shocks them both, agreeing to set forth with their sixty-pound dog, two querulous cats—and no agenda—in a 340-square-foot bus.
Queen of the Road is Doreen’s offbeat and romantic tale about refusing to settle; about choosing the unconventional road with all the misadventures it brings (fire, flood, armed robbery, and finding themselves in a nudist RV park, to name just a few). The marvelous places they visit and delightful people they encounter have a life-changing effect on all the travelers, as Doreen grows to appreciate the simple life, Tim mellows, and even the pets pull together. Best of all, readers get to go along for the ride through forty-seven states in this often hilarious and always entertaining memoir, in which a boisterous marriage of polar opposites becomes stronger than ever. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Raised—Great Neck, Long Island, New York, USA
• Education—Cornell University; M.D., George Washington
University
• Currently—lives in Boulder, Colorado
Doreen Orion is a triple-boarded psychiatrist on the faculty of the University of Colorado Health Science Center. She is an award-winning author, has lectured throughout the U.S. and has appeared on major national media such as Larry King Live, 48 Hours, Good Morning America and been interviewed by the New York Times, People Magazine and many others. Still, she considers her greatest accomplishment that her bus was the centerfold for Bus Conversions magazine (which she is the travel writer for), thus fulfilling a life-long ambition of being a Miss September (From the publisher.)
Extras
Her own words:
• I loved to write and could always be counted on to take creative license where none was called for. (To whit, the Ode to Geometry I foisted on my eighth grade math teacher.)
• My literary agent suggested I write a screenplay based on I Know You Really Love Me and I found that I immensely liked that form, so much so, I wrote many more and even had a few optioned. ("Extras" From the author's website.)
Book Reviews
The subtitle indicates all the makings of a funny account of a cross-country romp, but Orion (I Know You Really Love Me) doesn't deliver. Her humor is forced, and there's a terminally cute quality to her writing. The author and husband Tim are practicing psychiatrists. While she enjoys a "couch potato" existence, he longs for a life on the open road. After some convincing on Tim's part, the two agree to take a year's leave from their careers to ride cross-country in an RV. Doreen's cocktail recipes (e.g., "Phobic Friar," containing Frangelico, raspberry liqueur, and Baileys) begin most chapters. Her accounts of their travels have a similar flavor. Doreen and Tim's adventure begins with a shake-down cruise from the couple's home in Boulder, CO, passes through several Western states, then heads east (the "real" part of the trip), making a convoluted circuit of the country. The book ends with lists of "Special Places and People" and books the authors read on the trip—as well as the author's request to be invited to speak at book groups. An easy read, though maps or photos might have helped; for libraries with patrons likely to appreciate such a work.
Library Journal
How to get away from it all while taking it all with you. A self-described Jewish princess from Long Island, Orion (Psychiatry/Univ. of Colorado; I Know You really Love Me: A Psychiatrist's Account of Stalking and Obsessive Love, 1997) grudgingly accompanied her gung-ho husband on a yearlong trek around the country in a converted bus, despite her addiction to designer couture and general disinterest in leaving the house. A series of minor setbacks ensued (malfunctioning door, difficulties parking, etc.), but the journey passed pleasantly enough, as the author learned to prioritize relationships and experiences over material things and engage with the world beyond her television set. Mildly amusing situations and observations abound; Orion is relentlessly quippy, making the book resemble a low-impact remake of the screwball road-trip comedy The Long, Long Trailer with Rita Rudner playing the Lucille Ball role. It's difficult, however, to sustain interest in the author's many anecdotes concerning the cute antics of her pets or her beloved husband's zeal for DIY projects. The material is simply too mundane, and while Orion tries gamely, her employment of goofy puns, warmed-over self-deprecatory shtick and Erma Bombeckian wry homilies fails to transform the proceedings into comic gold. Her spiritual epiphanies likewise grate: Grand renunciation of material pleasures is a bit much coming from someone who can afford to take a year off work and seek out "authentic" experiences from the comforts of a diesel-guzzling luxury recreational vehicle. The book is also unsatisfying as a travelogue, since Orion's interest remains stubbornly focused on her cozy domestic concerns. The surprising paucity of reportage on local color and customs or the variations in landscape, architecture and cuisine contributes to an overriding atmosphere of self-congratulation as the author announces her newfound willingness to hike a mountain path or cut back on her television consumption. Charming enough in small doses, but ultimately irritating and inconsequential.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for Queen of the Road:
1. What was the impetus behind Orion and her husband's bus trip? Why did Orion agree to go along?
2. What particular anecdotes, experiences, or adventures did you find intreresting...or funny?
3. What did Orion learn during her year? What kind of personal growth or transformation did she undergo?
4. Talk about the relationship between Tim and Doreen during the year and how they resolved their differences.
5. Could you see yourself in Orion's shoes, doing what she and Tim did?
6. Some criticism of the book (above) is that Orion's focus was not on the sights and experiences of the journey itself, but on the narrow concerns of domesticity. Do you agree? If so, did you want more from the book? Or do you feel the book is precisely about those concerns, rather than the larger world the two traveled through?
(Questions from LitLovers. Please feel free to use them online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)