First We Quit Our Jobs
How One Work Driven Couple Got on the Road to a New Life
-
- $6.99
-
- $6.99
Publisher Description
What happens when two executives leave their jobs, friends, and the city behind to hit the road in a twenty-seven foot RV? America the beautiful becomes a place of sights, foods, people, memories, and a little wisdom.
After fifty-two combined years in the corporate fast lane, Marilyn Abraham and her husband, Sandy MacGregor, embarked on an adventure that every work-driven professional dreams about but hardly ever has the courage to realize. They quit their jobs and hit the road in order to retrain themselves in the art of living. For almost a year, the couple traveled nearly 20,000 miles to thirty-one states, including Washington, Montana, Colorado, New Mexico, Tennessee, and through seven Canadian provinces to Alaska, in the hulking RV they named Sue.
More than just a travelogue, First We Quit Our Jobs is the story of recreating one's life and discovering what is real, what is true, and what is important. Filled with visions of Americana, this personal and touching memoir traces the author's search for meaning in this modern day.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Many contemplate dropping off the corporate fast track to seek a simpler way of life. Abraham and her husband, Sandy MacGregor, did just that, leaving their New York executive jobs behind as they hit the road in the RV they nicknamed Sue. After 15 years of climbing through the ranks of the publishing industry (Bantam to Ballantine to Dell to editor-in-chief at Prentice Hall and Simon & Schuster trade paperbacks), Abraham said to her boss, "I'm resigning." Ignoring the warnings of well-meaning friends, the couple outfitted Sue, established an e-mail connection and embarked on a 15,241-mile journey that took them through Canada to Alaska and down to New Mexico on their route back to New York. Retraining themselves in the art of living, they devoted time and energies not to paperwork but to the discovery of various foods, cultures, places, people and themselves. As a former book editor, Abraham knows how to edit herself, and her book is never boring, since it takes the stance that new vistas are not only just over the next hill but also just a page away. Throughout, she steers back to her main theme, a comparison of old and new ways of life: "Time rubberized. The trip was making me aware of the silliness of the concept of bite-size time. Time was big. When we nibbled away at it, chiseling out this appointment, that meeting, another lunch date, we had made it small." The book is both a travelogue, including historic as well as literary sites, and a food guide-with cookouts, farm stands, grocery stores, markets, regional foods and restaurants (with stops at some of the places found in Jane and Michael Stern's Roadfood). In sharing her thoughts with the reader, Abraham turns her roadside observations into an intimate memoir. Illustrations. FYI: The couple takes Sue back on the road for an eight-city book tour.
