Feulner, Glen. Roadside Confessions. Glen Feulner, 2024.
Reason read: This is one of my favorite Early Reviews from LibraryThing.
This is fiction. This is fiction. This is fiction. I have to say that to myself over and over again like a mantra because Roadside Confessions is so beautifully believable and I (confessionally), I wanted it to be true. The journey is real. The grief is real. Grief puts people on pedestals and guilt gives them a golden halo. The suicidal tendencies are real (desire to burn by fire; drown in the ocean; hang inches above the dirt; a gun to the temple). What started as a writing exercise for Glen Feulner in 2003 turned into an AI-assisted love story. A man, torn apart by grief and guilt after losing his wife to cancer, makes a California to Maine sojourn to come to terms with his loss. Added to the drama: he might commit suicide along the way. As they say in Maine, hard tellin’ not knowin’.
While Roadside Confessions is a short read (I cracked it open on my lunch break and inhaled it faster than my black bean burrito), the words are powerful and the accompanying photographs are just gorgeous. Speaking of photography, only a handful belong to the author (fourteen, I think) and that was my a-ha moment. They are all beautiful nature shots and not a one is of the deceased beloved wife. But. I digress. Back to the writing.
Feulner sinks down and grinds into what it feels like to mourn deeply. If you have ever listened to Dermot Kennedy’s music and really heard his passionate lyrics, you could make the comparison. Feulner is just as lyrical and emotional. You just have to get over the voice changing from speaking about Allison to speaking to Allison. If you owe the reader nothing, do not assume our expectations. Besides all that, I (obviously) enjoyed every word and when I get over the fact it isn’t a true story I’ll read it again and again.
As an aside, I want to meet Kathleen Jor Hall-Dumont. I like blunt people.
As an another aside, Feulner tells his readers that there is a Roadside Confessions playlist on Spotify that readers can listen to. Maybe I don’t have the right subscription but I couldn’t find it. Bummer. Here is the music mentioned in Roadside Confessions:
The Replacements, Elvis Costello, the Smiths, and Death Cab for Cutie.
Here is another disappointed – this was an AI assisted book.
~*LunaSea*~ 