Читать книгу Roads From the Ashes - Megan Edwards - Страница 5

Foreword to the 20th Anniversary Edition

What a difference twenty years makes. When an intuitive, resourceful, creative couple lost everything in a fire, they didn’t wallow. They hit the road. Along the way, a literal journey became a metaphorical journey. They found freedom devoid of material items. They found themselves. Their motorhome became their chariot and the then-new Internet became their connection to finding their future.

Today, twenty years later, I think Megan Edwards’ on-the-road memoir resonates just as powerfully, if not more so than it did when first released. The technological world has changed so much that we marvel even more at how she and her husband Mark managed to utilize new technology in the old world. In that respect, it’s nostalgic to look back at what the world was like that, but it also helps us make sense of how far we’ve come.

While the world may be different now, some things never change, like the survival trigger when faced with catastrophic loss. These are brave, practical people, and it took more than a devastating fire to stop them. Megan’s engaging storytelling is powerful not just from the humor and honesty, but from the vivid details that bring this journey to life. The coast-to-coast trek is what many will do for a vacation, but this time it’s about survival, rebirth, and renewal.

But it’s also a travelogue and like any good travel tome, this one places you right in the front seat, squeezed between the two of them as you visit majestic places far and wide, ocean to desert to forest to the Big Apple. As the world becomes aware of them and the media start taking notice, we are there as their lives change.

The timelessness of a book like Roads from the Ashes is obvious from page to page, because the challenges and hurdles encountered have a universality to them. I’ve no doubt that in the next twenty years, regardless of how technology may morph at some light-speed pace, this book will remain relatable and relevant. In the end, as Edwards clearly understands, it’s not about technology, it’s about the characters and conflicts. That said, she gives technology its own personality throughout this adventure, because that is how they experienced it.

I’m glad I took the journey with them years ago. I’m even happier I took it again, now, twenty years wiser, and more in tune with beauty of her many on-the-road revelations.

Chris Epting

Author of James Dean Died Here, Roadside Baseball, and so many more books that have inspired untold numbers of road trips