Description
Alycia Ripley's debut novel, Traveling With An Eggplant, is a unique and deceptive re-imagining of Alice In Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz: a surreal world of music, magic, ghosts, and the state of modern romance. Music journalist Alison Olson finds herself wandering the college campus she attended years earlier. As her memories resurface and she remembers a cryptic comment from her favorite singer, Elvis Costello, she begins a story of three hardships: her rise through the ranks of a music magazine, a strange friendship with Seymour, an emotionally unavailable neuroscientist, and the fact that her mind is a "receiver"- one allowing songs and voices to broadcast inside her head. The complicated relationship between Alison and Seymour examines whether we can change our true natures and forces Alison to confront a childhood monster in order to avoid a horrible tragedy. What exactly happened? Where do dreams end and a parallel universe begin? The narrative explores a world where anything is possible and the implausible is the norm. Surrounded by a constant 1980's pop soundtrack, it is mediation on wish fulfillment, destiny, and heroism while proving the age-old adage that you sometimes have to lose yourself before you can find anything.
