A Train through Time: A Life, Real and Imagined

by Elizabeth Farnsworth, Mark Serr (Illustrator)

"It has been a long time since I read a book so moving, plainspoken, and beautiful." —Michael Chabon, Pulitzer Prize winner and author of MoonglowHow much of our memory is constructed by imagination? And how does memory shape our lives? As a nine–year–old, Elizabeth Farnsworth struggled to understand the loss of her mother. On a cross–country trip with her father, the heartsick child searches for her mother at train stations along the way. Even more, she confronts death, time, and a locked compartment on the train.Weaving a child’s experiences with memories from reporting in danger zones like Cambodia and Iraq, Farnsworth explores how she came to cover mass death and disaster. While she never breaks the tone of a curious investigator, she easily moves between her nine–year–old self and the experienced journalist. She openly confronts the impact of her childhood on the route her life has taken. And, as she provides one beautifully crafted depiction after another, we share her journey, coming to know the acclaimed reporter as she discovers herself.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir

178 pages, Kindle Edition

Published January 1, 2017

Reviews

[Diane S ☔ · Rating 3 out of 5]

When Elizabeth was a nine year old girl, her mother died from cancer, but she was told her mother went away. Not understanding the real meaning she searched at every stop on a train trip she took with her father from Topeka to San Francisco, for her mother. She also imbues this train trip with some imaginative features, tying together memory with imagination.

Alternating with this trip she talks about her later life job as chief correspondent for the Jim Lehrer News hour on PBS. A job that took her to the dangerous hotspots around the world, Haiti, Chile and Allende's run for President. After Pinochet's death she met with the family members, or those who were left, of the disappeared. Iraq after the fall of Saddam. So many dangerous places, places where she felt the world needed to know, places that by exposing what was really going on she could share and show she cared.

The writing, the tone is almost surrealistic, the prose almost poetic at times. Not a straightforward telling but a blend of fact and fantasy. I seem to respond well to books written like this, love the sense of discovery with which they are presented. She does tell us what was real or not about her train trip at book's end. All the pages about her professional life were true. Merging the difficult parts of her life together, one as a young girl, later a professional news correspondent dovetailed nicely, in my opinion, in giving Tue reader a well rounded, of short, glimpse of the, life of this remarkable woman.

[Vicki · Rating 3 out of 5]

Elizabeth Farnsworth is a journalist, who as a young girl lost her Mother to cancer. Consequently she and her father travel across the country by train from Kansas, getting stuck in the snow on a mountain in a blizzard. Some parts of her bio are real and some imagined. Glimpses, impressions. References to Frank Baum and the particular title of 'The Road to Oz' starring Tik-Tok, a white horse on her train on his way to replace the horse, 'Silver' on the 'Lone Ranger' and the story, 'The Gunniwolf' with the refrain, Kum kwa kee wa, a story I remember from my days as a library storyteller. These scenes are interwoven between Farnsworth's adult life reporting in war torn and dangerous parts of the world doing stories for 'The News Hour' Of particular focus was work on a movie called, 'The Judge and the General' (Judge Juan Guzman was the first Chilean judge to indict Augusto Pinochet for murder.)The remembrances are almost too brief to be fully realized.

[Leendert · Rating 4 out of 5]

mesmerizing, probably like the wizard of oz-mesmerizing. the first 2 pages were for me one of those 1st 2 page - read it a few times because i kept thinking i wasn't getting something and then the next few pages clarified that this book was going to unravel what those pages meant.

i actually don't even want to review this book. it is just so well done.

[Betsy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was disappointed in this book by former PBS News Hour reporter, Elizabeth Farnsworth. The book's structure is interesting: she alternates between an account of a childhood train trip through the snowy West with some of her experiences reporting from dangerous places. Farnsworth's mother had just died at the time of the train trip, and her father took her across the country to see relatives in California. The book describes a train accident that actually happened due to snow, and Farnsworth's participation in events to keep the passengers - and a horse - warm and safe. Only at the end did the reader find that, although a snowstorm did stop a train at about that time in U.S. history, Farnsworth was not on that train; all those experiences are imagined. For me, that ruined the book, even though reading about her experiences as a journalist was fascinating. I'm not sure I understand how the train trip - much tamer than that portrayed in the book - prepared the author for her later life. That is supposed to be the point of the book. Oh, well . . . I did learn that Farnsworth produced, "The Judge and the General," a movie about Chile I've wanted to see. Now I will pursue that movie more vigorously.

[Matt · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wanted this book, by a regular PBS Newshour contributor, to live up to its WG Sebald ambitions, weaving something magical out of these trips to the past and sites of historical atrocities. But it's not that-- the big story from the past, about a train journey that means to anchor the rest of the more contemporary adventures, fails to come to much-- in fact, Farnsworth ends the telling too long after that story's natural climax, even if it was tied more resonantly to what surrounds it. And the more topical moments-- time with revolutionaries or survivors of state violence in Chile, Iraq, etc-- feel too oblique to me. I'm confident I've enjoyed some of Farnsworth's reporting in my life. But her book is preeminently skippable.

[Kevin · Rating 4 out of 5]

A weird but fascinating read. Part fictionalized childhood flashback, part memories of travels to war torn countries, it somehow comes together to offer a picture of the author and how she sees the world. It is admittedly impressionistic and something you can read in one sitting but it worked somehow for me. The universal search for meaning and connection in the face of death haunts the work but it also reminds of the comfort of friends and family, of the importance of seeking compassion and justice even when violence and loss see to overwhelm.

[George · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked Elizabeth Farnsworth a lot when she was a regular on the PBS Newshour, so when I saw her interviewed about this book I bought the book promptly. It was a good purchase. It's an unusual book, mixing imagination and history, as well as covering moments of her childhood history and her experiences in dangerous foreign settings as a correspondent. Well worth reading.

[Betsey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well written autobiography of this NPR correspondent; touchpoints become the connecting points of a full and fulfilling life. The story weaves through the eyes of a child, some imagination and hope for other things, reality of adult travels into war zones with colleagues.

[Steve Mayer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Terrific memoir by the intrepid foreign correspondent explores her memory and imagination to discover hue she became who she is. The central train trip narrative is particularly compelling, as it illustrates many characteristics of a great reporter, such as curiosity and fearlessness.

[Elizabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author, a reporter for PBS News Hour follows two paths: childhood memories of the loss of her mother and the various experiences she had as a journalist reporting on war in places like Iran and Iraq.

[Jackie Rogers · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very well written little book. Are excerpts from Ms. Farnsworth life. Are they real or imagined? Thanks to Goodreads.

[Bobbie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was excellent!

[Isaac · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wistful and compelling although not what I expected when taking it off the shelf at the library.

[Tena · Rating 4 out of 5]

I won this in a GOODREADS givaway -A Train through Time: A Life, Real and Imagined by Elizabeth Farnsworth -- wonderful little book of storys and adventures. Highly recomend.

[Ayelet Waldman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Unlike anything I've ever read. Incredible.

[Donna · Rating 2 out of 5]

I liked the stories about the train stuck in the blizzard, but was less interested in the later correspondent stories.

[Theresa · Rating 3 out of 5]

When Elizabeth was nine yrs. old, her mother died of breast cancer. She knew her mother was ill, but in no way was she prepared for her death. When it happened, the words used were 'lost' and 'passed on', and so the child continues to search for her, confused and upset for several months before her father finally uses the word, 'dead'. This period of her life is recounted through a train journey from home in Topeka to San Francisco in the year following the death.
Interspersed with memories of the journey are her adult experiences as a journalist, vivid accounts of violent losses of beloved family members, to bombs, guns, kidnappings, disappearances.
All is not bleak, however. Her symbols are powerful as they indeed need to be to express the emotional lightning strikes we visit upon each other. She manages to convey as well that there is beauty, too, in this broken world.
She learned early in life "to accept insecurity and to assertively embrace life which she knows to be fragile." Like Dorothy in the Oz books, she believes that finding a way to be useful to others while searching for a way home can be a great relief from the self.

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

Saw this reviewed on PBS Newshour and had to read! I have always wondered how journalists have the courage to enter war torn, dictator-lead countries just carrying notebook, cameras, microphone. The author's childhood experiences explain how a person can develop the strength to go out and report on the immoral attacks on basic human rights around the world. This work must continue and I highly recommend this book.

[Catherine · Rating 2 out of 5]

Supposedly a memoir, the author alternates chapters about harrowing experiences as a foreign correspondent for PBS Newshour with a tale of an eventful train trip with her father as a child. Although the book jacket mentions that “imagination is at play throughout her work” the book is classified as nonfiction which led me to believe it’s, you know, true. The dominant story (the childhood trip) was the part I liked best, and then the author casually mentioned in the Afterward that most of it was fictionalized. Boo, hiss.