Why a Booktrail?
2000s: A bus journey across America to places you’ve never been on a journey you will never have imagined going on and with people you’ve never had the pleasure of meeting until now
Last Bus to Coffeeville
What you need to know before your trail
This is a funny book about sad things – since it involves two of the most taboo subjects of death and Alzheimer’s. Now if you knew someone who had made a wish when young of wanting to die if they caught the disease, would you go through with their wish?
Eugene Chancy III has this very dilemma when he meets and falls in love with Nancy Skidmore at Duke University. They embark on a journey to Coffeeville and take a motley bunch of people with them – The bus soon consists of a retired doctor who doesn’t seem to even like the human body, a former CIA hitman, a disgraced TV weatherman and a teenager. What could possibly go wrong?
A very interesting and funny journey across a difficult landscape
Travel Guide
A journey with a difference for this is one which no one really wanted to take yet they made a promise to do so when and if the time came.
From the promise made at Duke university, the journey across the country to Coffeeville becomes a sad yet ultimately funny reality. From breaking Nancy out of a secure unit in Hershey (home of the fine chocolate) to the journey via some of the most iconic places you could ever want to visit in the USA – Nashville, Graceland and Memphis, we travel via a stolen minibus all across the land ending up in Coffeeville. The mini bus has been stolen from a Beatle just add to the delicious joy this novel creates.
And that’s not forgetting the visit to the Mississippi Delta when Eugene travels back to see Nancy’s family all those years ago.
The tragedy of Nancy’s fate is sad, of course it is, but the overall theme is one of friendship and the journey that two people can go on in every sense of the word.
The journey is the ultimate cross country trek amongst friends – all set against the backdrop of real historical events and some of the most important issues with in american society at the time – civil rites, segregation and life in the Deep South as a whole.
Hershey
A small town in PA, surrounded by cows and pastures, home to the chocolate company of the same name. Milton Hershey was like the Willy Wonka of his day and built a town for her workers. It still advertises itself as the sweetest place on earth
Coffeeville
According to the slogan coined for its 175th anniversary it was a place where ’Old friends gather’ . Quite apt for this story!
The town owned its origins to general John Coffee – It was later renamed in his honor – a hero of the Creek and Indian War.
Booktrailer Review
Susan:
What a treat! A book that I thought I might find difficult given the subject matter of Nancy’s Alzheimer’s was told with such emotion and heart felt at that, I was immediately drawn into the story so much that I wanted to give Nancy a hug.
She had some great friends on the trip and met more along the way – their love and support was just amazing and it will make you feel as if you wished you had such friends who would literally go to the ends of the earth to make you happy. The scene where they break Nancy out of the secure unit was a show stealer and that’s before the memorable journey!
Where Next?
