Ghost Rider: Travels on the Healing RoadWithin a ten-month period, Neil Peart lost both his 19-year-old daughter, Selena, and his wife, Jackie. Faced with overwhelming sadness and isolated from the world in his home on the lake, Peart was left without direction. This memoir tells of the sense of personal devastation that led him on a 55,000-mile journey by motorcycle across much of North America, down through Mexico to Belize, and back again. Peart’s journey of self-exile and exploration chronicle his personal odyssey and include stories of reuniting with friends and family, grieving, and reminiscing. He recorded with dazzling artistry, the enormous range of his travel adventures, from the mountains to the seas, from the deserts to the Arctic ice, and the memorable people who contributed to his healing. Ghost Rider is a brilliantly written, and ultimately triumphant narrative memoir from a gifted writer and the drummer and lyricist of the legendary rock band Rush. |
From inside the book
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... called it cancer, but of course it was a broken heart), and a second nightmare began. Jackie's brother Steven met us in Toronto and soon took over the household, controlling the number of visitors (who called him “The Gatekeeper”), and ...
... called to me from the kitchen, “Neil, it's for you,” but I was preoccupied with trying to get my mallets to hit the right keys on the marimba, and just grumbled, “How do you know?” What a fool I used to be. (The truest words I ever ...
... called my mom and dad, and talked to my dad about what I had been seeing and remembering. He told me that when his dad and Uncle John were young they used to come west to Manitoba from southern Ontario on the “harvest trains,” which ...
... called “whisky” (though it didn't match my plastic cup of The Macallan). I took my drink outside to the covered walkway and watched the dark clouds looming in from the northwest, trailing ghostly tendrils of rain. Dust swirled beside ...
... called “healing,” but at least I had begun to believe in the road, and that was enough to keep me riding westward. Through those days and nights I wasn't always feeling “better,” as the process of grieving oscillated, even through each ...