Incognito Street: How Travel Made Me a Writer

by Barbara Sjoholm, Barbara Wilson

Barbara Sjoholm arrived in London in the winter of 1970 at the age of twenty. Like countless young Americans in that tumultuous time, she wanted to leave a country at war and explore Europe; a small inheritance from her grandmother gave her the opportunity.  Over the next three years, she lived in Barcelona, hitchhiked around Spain, and studied at the University of Granada. She managed a sourvenir shop in the Norwegian mountains and worked as a dishwasher on the Norwegian Coastal Steamer. Set on becoming a writer, she read everything from Colette to Dickens to Borges, changing her style and her subject every few weeks, and gradually found her voice. Incognito Street is the story of a young woman's search for artistic, political, and sexual identity while digesting the changing world around her.  As she sheds the ghosts of her childhood, we come to know her quiet yet adventurous spirit. In moments that are tender, funny, bewildering, and suspenseful, we see an evocative look at Europe through the blossoming writer’s maturing eyes.

Genres: Travel, Memoir, Writing, Nonfiction, Feminism, Queer, Biography Memoir

256 pages, Paperback

First published September 21, 2006

About the author

I’m a writer of nonfiction, including memoirs (Blue Windows) and travel books (The Pirate Queen). As Barbara Sjoholm I have published essays and travel articles in The New York Times, Smithsonian, Slate, and American Scholar, as well as many other publications. My focus as a nonfiction writer has been on Scandinavia and the Indigenous Sami people of the Nordic countries (Black Fox, Palace of the Snow Queen). I also translate from Danish (By the Fire: Sami Folktales) and Norwegian (Clearing Out by Helene Uri).

As Barbara Wilson I have a long career as a mystery writer, with two series featuring lesbian sleuths, Pam Nilsen, a printer in Seattle, and the globe-trotting translator Cassandra Reilly. Gaudi Afternoon, with Cassandra, and set in Barcelona, was awarded a Lambda and a British Crime Writers Award and made into a film with Judy Davis and Marcia Gay Harden. After a bit of a hiatus, I've resumed writing mysteries with Cassandra Reilly. The latest is Not the Real Jupiter, with more to follow.

Reviews

[Silvio111 · Rating 5 out of 5]

A vivid and eloquent description of the evolution of a woman writer, starting at the beginning during the "being in love with the idea of writing" phase before the writer develops a skill and a voice.

It is particularly affecting because it occurs during the 1970s when the sexual revolution was still ahead of feminism, and this young writer bumped up against this conflict. We are along for the ride as she struggles and starts to understand the nature of that struggle.

Probably the most profound insight in this account is the idea that you cannot be a writer if you are not able or willing to be truthful about your own life.

Good memoirs incite a vicarious experience in the reader. In much the same way that Bill Bryson's A WALK IN THE WOODS made me exhausted as I trekked the Appalachian Trail with him for what felt like months, Barbara Sjoholm's account of her three years of European travel from London to Paris to the cities of Spain, to the mountains of Norway, and finally up and down the Norwegian coast on a passenger/cargo ship as a dishwasher evoked a deep homesickness and a magnetic pull back toward the United States as she finally admitted to herself that she had paid her initial dues toward becoming a writer. (Whew, that was a long sentence!)

I read many of this author's mystery novels in the early 90s but had no idea of her background, which makes this book all the more fascinating to read 20 years later.

[MaryJo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sometimes in the 90s I ran into a writer named Barbara Wilson. I liked supporting small presses, especially ones owned by women, and Barbara Wilson was the co-founder of Seal Press. She wrote some mysteries, and the Cassandra Reilly series was fun. Gaudi Afternoon even got made into a movie. At that time I also read her remarkable memoir, Blue Windows, about growing up in the Christian Science church, living with her mother's suicide, and eventually coming out as a lesbian. Recently an article appeared in my feed about a new book: Cassandra Reilly showing up again, older now, but still queer. https://crimereads.com/the-queer-old-... As I read through the article which starts out talking about how female detectives mostly don't age, it slowly dawned on me that the writer is Barbara Wilson, and she has a new book out. A little searching revealed that Barbara Wilson is actually a pen name, and she has a whole other career as a writer and translator under her real name, Barbara Sjoholm. This book, published in 2006, is a follow up of Blue Windows, published under the name Sjoholm. I was pleased to find an "old friend" writer, and promptly ordered the new Cassandra Reilly book, as well as some of the other work, including this book. It covers a period in her early 20s when she knows she wants to be a writer, but somehow can't sit down and write. Deciding that she needs "experience", she spends about three years in Europe, including longer stays in London, Norway, and Spain. It is clear that she also needs to figure out her sexuality, what to do with her relationships with men, and her feelings for her friend Laura. I liked the second half of the book better than the first half. The narrator gains independence, and the reader can see the writer emerging. Her interest in language and translation is also a thread running through the book, presaging the work she would later do. She also records her fascination with the idea of small presses--learning that Virginia Wolfe not only wrote, but also co-founded a small press is the beginning of an idea, that will lead her to taking courses on printing, and later starting Seal Press. She is still floundering, but I could see the person I know she will become emerging. We are about the same age, and I enjoyed some of the references to the time period. A man she has a relationship with in Spain makes bread and bakes it in a oven based on an article from the Whole Earth Catalog; a reference to Bill Henderson and his founding of Pushcart Press; reading Doris Lessing, and then Sisterhood is Powerful and The First Sex. She does a good job of both capturing a period when she was unsettled in just about every way, and at the same time letting the reader see how she becomes the very accomplished woman she is today.

[JulieK · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyable mix of memoir and travel writing.

[K2 ----- · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a delightful surprise. I picked this up because I knew the author and had read her other nonfiction book about growing up in a family influenced by the Christian Science Church years back.

In this book readers are taking on a ride through her travels of her very early twenties in Europe and how her experiences influence her life as a writer. When I began reading I wondered if it would interest someone who didn't know the author but I was swiftly convinced it would. She tells what it was like to be an independent young woman who was exploring the world and getting to know herself and recognizing her passion for not only feminism but also for foreign languages. She struggles to put her family life in perspective, failed relationships and a budding recognition she may be more attracted to women than men.

Not long after this adventure she went on to start a small well-lauded publishing company and continue to not only write but translate works from several languages.

This is a great book for someone wanting a travel book, a book about coming of age, or a look at a writer's struggle to emerge amid many life challenges.

I was talking to an editor friend of mine last week and we both agreed what a talented writer she was, I was reading this nonfiction book and she was reading on of her mysteries. Bravo.

[Bee · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've never regularily read memoirs, or any other form of creative non-fiction, for that matter. It is one of several previously unexplored avenues that have beckoned during my recent convalescence. This is a thoughtful, easily paced memoir with compelling descriptions of a backpacker's Europe in the 1970's. It explores the relationship of place and identity, and the particular challenges facing people who are simultaneously women and writers. It also made me want to go to Norway.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great stories and travel writing both in this book by Barbara Sjoholm. She takes us through her first European encounters in London, through Norway working for a summer amongst other ex-pat students living in the loft of a barn and various travels throughout Spain etc. Storytelling and exotic locales. Right up my alley.

[Anita · Rating 3 out of 5]

Slow to get into. Very descriptive of all the places she travels through, but she gradually reveals pieces of herself and makes you care about her. Definitely recommended for anyone who feels nostalgic about Spain or Norway.

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was interested in the writer's experiences in Spain in the 70s and her blossoming as a writer. The sub-text of sub-text of her whining about whether she was a lesbian or not and her obsession with her friend Barbara was cloying and I could have done with less of.

[Lee Del · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was very interesting in its description of Spain during the Franco era... and some of her travels were captivating.

[Kirsten · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book definitely served the author's purpose. Made me want to travel and be a writer.

[Courtney · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book really inspires the adventurous side in a person. I now need to plan a trip to Europe!

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Started out a little annoying but got better. Interesting to see how different people you meet in life influence you and mold you.

[Crystal · Rating 4 out of 5]

I want to go to Norway & Madrid!

[Marina · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meh.

[Jen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book made me want to be young and free again. You really do learn a lot about yourself when you travel and live abroad with few concrete plans.