Ransom Notes 2: Rivers of No Return in Five Flavors

by Alison Leslie Gold

While I was in the midst of a furious book-binge, a traveling virus inveigled itself yonder and nigh, and so captured and restrained my once outward-bound life. My travels ground to a halt. Sheltering-in-place led to quarantine once the virus had paid me a personal visit. Months passed. Seasons. My reading choices (more often than not) became tales of travel or stories set in foreign cultures and landscapes. Fondling book after book, I began plucking words and phrases (like mollusks or pearls from shells) from each; then threading my plunder into strands. Although every plat contains the exclusive DNA of a single work by an author who has nourished me, they are otherwise without concord. Much like this moment in time during which sense and cohesion have gone astray. Bound within my apartment like a hostage, I suffered no travel cold turkey. Literature eased my withdrawal. I could, for the first time, imagine my life without travel and discovered that, “As often as not, we are homesick most for the places we have never known.” (Carson McCullers, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, 1940). From these book-soaked days emerged this river-themed compilation.

124 pages, Paperback

Published May 6, 2023

About the author

Alison Leslie Gold is an American author. Her books include Anne Frank Remembered, Clairvoyant: the Imagined Life of Lucia Joyce, The Devil's Mistress, and Memories of Anne Frank. She has written literary fiction as well as books for young people on a wide range of subjects including alcoholic intervention and the Holocaust as experienced by the young. Her work has been translated into more than 25 languages.