Avoiding Prison & Other Noble Vacation Goals

May 1, 2003
As television writer Dale explains,"travel as a means of escape" was almost a genetic predisposition in her family. Raised by parents who continually pulled up stakes and moved somewhere they'd only vaguely heard about, Dale came to view travel as"the real-world version of falling down a rabbit hole," with everything slightly off-kilter and unreal, like a good drug high. If things went sour--perhaps a lover bailed--well, it wasn't real, it was traveling, and it was over when she hopped her return flight anyway. The right to do nothing and be irresponsible were her life goals, until she met Francisco in a Costa Rican prison (she was just visiting). Dale thought Francisco was worth stopping for. Once Dale extricated the man from prison and went live with him in his native Colombia, she began to see her life in a different light. Sure, she still smoked and drank too much, and neither she nor Francisco could get anything like a job with a salary. Nonetheless, she tried to settle down and make a life with him in California. Clever readers will know this foreshadows disaster, and could skip the last three chapters of the book, wherein Dale gets dumped by the boyfriend and moves in with her parents to experience the adolescence she felt she'd missed. It may be what really happened in the end, but readers who've come to savor Dale's"girls wanna have fun" attitude might been happier leaving her at an ATM in California with an unexpected fistful of 20s.

April 1, 2003
As television writer Dale explains,"travel as a means of escape" was almost a genetic predisposition in her family. Raised by parents who continually pulled up stakes and moved somewhere they'd only vaguely heard about, Dale came to view travel as"the real-world version of falling down a rabbit hole," with everything slightly off-kilter and unreal, like a good drug high. If things went sour--perhaps a lover bailed--well, it wasn't real, it was traveling, and it was over when she hopped her return flight anyway. The right to do nothing and be irresponsible were her life goals, until she met Francisco in a Costa Rican prison (she was just visiting). Dale thought Francisco was worth stopping for. Once Dale extricated the man from prison and went live with him in his native Colombia, she began to see her life in a different light. Sure, she still smoked and drank too much, and neither she nor Francisco could get anything like a job with a salary. Nonetheless, she tried to settle down and make a life with him in California. Clever readers will know this foreshadows disaster, and could skip the last three chapters of the book, wherein Dale gets dumped by the boyfriend and moves in with her parents to experience the adolescence she felt she'd missed. It may be what really happened in the end, but readers who've come to savor Dale's"girls wanna have fun" attitude might been happier leaving her at an ATM in California with an unexpected fistful of 20s.

Copyright 2003 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.