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Once Upon a Chariot
My mind races as my legs pump and the ground flies beneath me. The scenery moves by like so many feet of paper on my mothers player piano, rolling, playing, and measuring my progress.' With that, author Iris Paris begins an intriguing journal of her mother, Norma Jean Belloff, who raced across the United States on bicycle in 1948. Told with charm and wit, this representation of the personal journal of the woman who established the USA record for Womens Cross-Country Cycling will grab your attention and your heart. Portrayals of the people she met and the experiences she encountered, told firsthand, enlighten us to a simpler time that was still wrought with the social difficulties we find today. Looking for a new way of escape? Find yours in Once Upon a Chariotwho knows, you might be inspired to take you your own chariot and feel the wind in your face.
212 pages, Paperback
First published November 18, 2008
28 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
May 2, 2012
This book kind of blew me away—but not for the right reasons.
"America's Top Publisher" (according to their website), Tate Publishing and Enterprises shares the story of Norma Jean Belloff as told in a fictionalized account by her daughter Iris Paris. The book was plucked off a shelf and personally recommended to me by Greg Siple, one of the co-founders of Adventure Cycling Association, the largest bike advocacy organization in the US. Greg and I share a love of bicycle history, and seeing the story of a long-distance female cyclist before the days of The Feminine Mystique, I was sure I'd fall in love with this book. The cover was lovely—the content must be delightful too. Right? How could an author who "never...dreamed of writing herself" (author bio from back cover) go wrong?
At first while reading the text, I just started seeing little errors that pulled me out of the story, like "I couldn't breath." Next I started noticing contractions without apostrophes, or contractions with quotes where the apostrophe should be. Then, words that were italicized for no discernable reason. By the time I got to the reference of the "Lyons Club of Baltimore" (p. 191) I was convinced this was a self-published book by someone who hadn't bothered to hire a copy editor. Or whose copy editor had relied solely on the spell check function of Microsoft Word.
Sadly the editorial problems did not end there. People who bother to read the subtitle might be expecting a story about this woman's record-setting journey in 1948. The book actually details a previous cross-country trip that happened the year before. At the tail end of this trip, she finally meets the man interested in having her establish the mentioned record, on her journey back home. A journey that is only referenced in the last two pages of the book.
It seems the book could have benefitted from some more developmental work as well (again looking at the publisher's website, it appears most of the editorial staff is fresh out of college). Perhaps because Tate focuses their list on people who wouldn't normally be published, they have to work with these non-authors really hard to even get a manuscript to this point. While the book captures the random thoughts that flit through one's head while bicycling for many hours (and in Norma's case, for many months at a time), Norma quickly starts sounding like Andy Rooney, and it gets old without a larger arc to the story. Given the author bio on the back cover, I'd have been much more interested in a memoir that focused on the daughter's discovery of her mom's diaries rather than a fictionalized account of her mom's trip that doesn't seem to have a significant emotional journey.
Given the publisher's faith-based business beliefs, the one emotional journey I imagine the author was going for was of spiritual strengthening. Norma seems to invoke God increasingly as she moves through the country, and at the beginning the faith-based references are logical and make sense. However, by the last page the author shoehorns in a few diary quotes about God, for no obvious reason. Is this a book about a woman who crossed the country on her bike in 1947, or a book about her relationship to God? It's unclear. I (and many others I know) would love to read the former book, and yet it kind of eventually dissolves into the latter without any warning.
All that having been said though, there are some small moments where the writing really shines. There are a few very quotable passages that describe certain aspects of bike touring that seem pretty spot on and honest. For example, when discussing the reporters who want to interview her when she bikes into their town, she admits to readers:
"I long to be honest; honesty sets me free. The truth is I'm not a brave athlete looking for an education. In reality I'm running scared from responsibility, from the box being built around me; a box constructed out of everyone's expectations. My parents, my teachers, my brothers, sister, and even Neill all expect something from me, and I can't say no to them. Moving myself physically from one place to another, exerting effort through engaging my muscles to get to a new destination—I try to out-distance the box." (p. 174)
Despite the many problems with the book, gems like these kept me reading. Regardless of its quality as a book, stories about women cyclists are fairly rare, and I am still slightly glad my path ran across this one. If I was Norma, I would probably thank God for that and then cite a Bible verse...
"America's Top Publisher" (according to their website), Tate Publishing and Enterprises shares the story of Norma Jean Belloff as told in a fictionalized account by her daughter Iris Paris. The book was plucked off a shelf and personally recommended to me by Greg Siple, one of the co-founders of Adventure Cycling Association, the largest bike advocacy organization in the US. Greg and I share a love of bicycle history, and seeing the story of a long-distance female cyclist before the days of The Feminine Mystique, I was sure I'd fall in love with this book. The cover was lovely—the content must be delightful too. Right? How could an author who "never...dreamed of writing herself" (author bio from back cover) go wrong?
At first while reading the text, I just started seeing little errors that pulled me out of the story, like "I couldn't breath." Next I started noticing contractions without apostrophes, or contractions with quotes where the apostrophe should be. Then, words that were italicized for no discernable reason. By the time I got to the reference of the "Lyons Club of Baltimore" (p. 191) I was convinced this was a self-published book by someone who hadn't bothered to hire a copy editor. Or whose copy editor had relied solely on the spell check function of Microsoft Word.
Sadly the editorial problems did not end there. People who bother to read the subtitle might be expecting a story about this woman's record-setting journey in 1948. The book actually details a previous cross-country trip that happened the year before. At the tail end of this trip, she finally meets the man interested in having her establish the mentioned record, on her journey back home. A journey that is only referenced in the last two pages of the book.
It seems the book could have benefitted from some more developmental work as well (again looking at the publisher's website, it appears most of the editorial staff is fresh out of college). Perhaps because Tate focuses their list on people who wouldn't normally be published, they have to work with these non-authors really hard to even get a manuscript to this point. While the book captures the random thoughts that flit through one's head while bicycling for many hours (and in Norma's case, for many months at a time), Norma quickly starts sounding like Andy Rooney, and it gets old without a larger arc to the story. Given the author bio on the back cover, I'd have been much more interested in a memoir that focused on the daughter's discovery of her mom's diaries rather than a fictionalized account of her mom's trip that doesn't seem to have a significant emotional journey.
Given the publisher's faith-based business beliefs, the one emotional journey I imagine the author was going for was of spiritual strengthening. Norma seems to invoke God increasingly as she moves through the country, and at the beginning the faith-based references are logical and make sense. However, by the last page the author shoehorns in a few diary quotes about God, for no obvious reason. Is this a book about a woman who crossed the country on her bike in 1947, or a book about her relationship to God? It's unclear. I (and many others I know) would love to read the former book, and yet it kind of eventually dissolves into the latter without any warning.
All that having been said though, there are some small moments where the writing really shines. There are a few very quotable passages that describe certain aspects of bike touring that seem pretty spot on and honest. For example, when discussing the reporters who want to interview her when she bikes into their town, she admits to readers:
"I long to be honest; honesty sets me free. The truth is I'm not a brave athlete looking for an education. In reality I'm running scared from responsibility, from the box being built around me; a box constructed out of everyone's expectations. My parents, my teachers, my brothers, sister, and even Neill all expect something from me, and I can't say no to them. Moving myself physically from one place to another, exerting effort through engaging my muscles to get to a new destination—I try to out-distance the box." (p. 174)
Despite the many problems with the book, gems like these kept me reading. Regardless of its quality as a book, stories about women cyclists are fairly rare, and I am still slightly glad my path ran across this one. If I was Norma, I would probably thank God for that and then cite a Bible verse...
December 2, 2010
A young girl sets the record for cross country bicycling at age 20 in 1948. Her story is told to us by her now-grown daughter through the journals her mother left behind. I love the vivid descriptions of the places and people and scenery and also the raw questioning of life she does while on her journey.
September 25, 2015
I had already read this fantastic book. Read again great story and photographs.
May 26, 2010
This story was a treasure for me. What woman in the 50s goes on a cross-country bike ride all alone?! She's got spunk, I tell ya. I really enjoyed her story and the people she met, her journey to know God, her family's cobwebs she had to sort through.
I'm so glad her daughter wrote this story. A fine tribute to her mother. Two things saddened me: that her mother never got on a bike after her kids were born, and that her mother committed suicide in her 40s. Reading this book gives me courage to choose to live each day, not coast or give up, but really live. It really is worth the battle.
This and Evans' 'The Walk' really have planted a seed in me...I'm itching to take a really fine walk or bike tour one day with Brandon. I think I'd love the slow pace and the real people we'd encounter.
I'm so glad her daughter wrote this story. A fine tribute to her mother. Two things saddened me: that her mother never got on a bike after her kids were born, and that her mother committed suicide in her 40s. Reading this book gives me courage to choose to live each day, not coast or give up, but really live. It really is worth the battle.
This and Evans' 'The Walk' really have planted a seed in me...I'm itching to take a really fine walk or bike tour one day with Brandon. I think I'd love the slow pace and the real people we'd encounter.
November 18, 2011
One thing that mislead me about this book is that it says that the story is about the author's mother biking across America and back. The majority of the book is about her biking across America; there are only two or so pages in the Epilogue describing her trip back. :/
March 11, 2012
I enjoyed reading about the authors mother as she bicycled across America and back. I have since somehow lost my autographed copy!
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews