He has Alzheimer’s disease. She has a serious case of cancer and has stopped taking the treatments. He’s driving the family’s late-1970s RV. She’s riding shotgun and popping pain pills. He’s subject to outbursts of anger and confusion. She’s cynical and wistful. The elderly couple is going down Route 66 for a final vacation together.
This may sound like a road trip from hell. But Michael Zadoorian’s new novel, “The Leisure Seeker” ($24.95, HarperCollins, 288 pages, in stores Tuesday), turns out to be a brisk, entertaining read with an abundance of humor and poignant moments. “The Leisure Seeker” also has been optioned by Sharp Independent films.
The story starts with John and Ella Robina already on the road, departing their native Detroit. Against their adult children’s protests, they point their Leisure Seeker RV toward Chicago and take the Mother Road to Disneyland. Ella, who’s calling the shots, knows that she and John don’t have much time left, and wants to take a vacation together.
It’s quite an adventure. They get held up by robbers at the Texas-New Mexico ghost town of Glenrio, suffer a harrowing fall in New Mexico, eat pie at the Midpoint Cafe in Adrian, Texas, buy grapes from one of the roadside stands in Missouri, tour Meramec Caverns … between the misadventures, they do many of the things that tourists do — if time and health allow.
At their stops for the night, the couple watches slides from previous long-ago vacations. During a slide show at the Lincoln Motel in Chandler, Okla., John and Ella have a pleasant encounter with fellow Route 66 tourists. Those slides allow the couple to reminisce — if John has the capacity to do so.
Zadoorian’s portrayal of John and his creeping dementia comes across as heartbreakingly accurate. Occasionally, John wakes in the morning and is remarkably lucid for a few minutes, “as if his mind has forgotten to be forgetful.” Then he returns to his mental fog. Most of the time, he doesn’t cause problems. But he periodically goes into a rage amid his confusion, including one ugly incident with a prank-pulling clerk at the Snow Cap Drive-In in Seligman, Ariz. Ella has to keep an eye on John, making sure he doesn’t wander off without her. More concerning, Ella thinks that John is entertaining thoughts of suicide.
Zadoorian’s wisest decision with “The Leisure Seeker” was to tell the story entirely from Ella’s point of view. She comes across as curmudgeonly but lovable — typical for a woman who’s lived long and no longer cares much about decorum. Here’s an excerpt of Ella’s thoughts, when the couple is driving past the Gemini Giant in Wilmington, Ill., and she’s fiddling with her wig:
As we pass the Launching Pad Drive-In, again I want to crank down the window all the way. Then I realized that if I want to feel the wind and sun on my face, there is no reason why I can’t. I rip off my Babushka, then unclasp my helmet of synthetic lifelike fiber (the Eva Gabor Milady II Evening Shade — 75% white/25% black) at the back where it is tentatively tethered to my last remaining hair of any thickness. I reach underneath, then pull back and up to unsheath my head.
I roll down the window and throw that goddamned thing out where it tumbles and flops along the side of the road like a just-hit animal. Such blessed relief. I can’t remember the last time my scalp saw direct sunlight. What little hair I have on top is thin and delicate like the first frail wisp of an infant. In the delicious wind, the long strands twist and dance around my scalp, a sad swirled turban, but I don’t care today. It had bothered me so much when my hair thinned out after menopause. I was ashamed like I had done something wrong, afraid of what everybody would say. You spend you life so worried about what others think, when in reality, people mostly don’t think. On the few occasions when they do, it is often something bad, but one had to at least admire the fact that they’re thinking at all.
I look back at my Styrofoam wig stand. The head is still taped to the counter, no longer my companion, but now staring at me, judging, wondering “What the hell did you just do?” I don’t look at myself in the mirror. I know I look like death warmed over. It doesn’t matter. I feel lighter already.
The novel’s conclusion won’t be a surprise to many, although it may happen in a way you won’t expect (Zadoorian inserts a few MacGuffins to keep readers guessing). The ending may prove troubling to some readers and will inspire a lot of discussion. But Ella’s final words on the page will haunt long after you close the book.
Highly recommended.