Up a Road Slowly is for a particular kind of reader. It’s for someone who sees, or is looking for, value in the very regular life they live. The fact that Up a Road Slowly follows the rather quiet life of a girl from the day her mother dies to the day she graduates from high school suggests the book is aimed at a young female audience. I’m a fifty-six-year-old man. Why did I thoroughly enjoy it?
Irene Hunt, the author, builds this book on the backs of ordinary characters that probably exist in your life in one form or another. The trick Hunt performs is in bringing out the color and importance of what should be mundane events. Scenes like Julia and Aunt Cordelia clinging to each other while they cry in the back of a closet, or the kiss Julia gives her fallen, incorrigible Uncle Haskall take on great depth and meaning.
Julia’s growth from one stage of her life to another is marked by vivid scenes that successfully communicate the complexities of these transitions. Even though I can only see my life from the male perspective Hunt is skilled enough in the language of Humanity to make Julia’s life relevant to mine.
Reading this book was as if the disembodied Julia took my hand and walked with me slowly up an autumn road. Of course, the road is her life, the color of the leaves the events that shaped her experience. In the end Julia leaves me and I find that I am now standing on my own road seeing the scenery around me with new eyes.
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These books by Tory Anderson are now available on Amazon in Kindle and paperback format:
