The Fourth Demand

Soon after Andy Solomon became the single parent of his 2-year-old son Marty he put the toddler on his motorcycle’s gas tank, and they became motorcycle men. This life lasted seven years until a near-fatal accident when Marty was nine made Andy promise he’d never again put his son on a motorcycle. But they missed riding terribly and formed a plan: when Marty graduated college they would get new motorcycles and tour the entire country. When Marty graduated, they did just that: five weeks, 26 states, and over 9000 miles from Florida to the Pacific and back.

This warm, perceptive account of that tour is on its surface a richly informative travel memoir, but at its heart it is the story of a devoted single parent raising his only child to adulthood and now letting him go.