insider BOOKSHELF
The Ultimate Road Trip LOCAL AUTHOR’S DEBUT NOVEL TELLS UNCONVENTIONAL TALE.
W
BY SOFIA PEREZ · PHOTOS BY L.G. PATTERSON ith summer comes
to stay occupied in her job as a choral
vacation, which
director, but her days have become
women's fiction, upmarket fiction
for some can mean
monotonous, the grieving is unbearable,
or book club fiction. Basi says she
loading up the car
and she knows that change is imminent.
realizes that the story sounds like it
with suitcases and snacks, and hitting
When going through her daughter’s
could be very depressing as the main
the road with loved ones. Local author
room to begin taking inventory of all
character struggles to deal with such
Kathleen Basi’s debut novel, A Song
that was left behind, Miriam finds a flip-
heartbreaking losses. “I had to think
for the Road, tells the story of an
a-coin road trip app that her children
carefully about how to keep it from
unconventional cross-country road trip
had created for her and her husband to
becoming so heavy that it couldn't
that becomes a journey of discovery.
take upon becoming empty nesters. In
bear the weight of human interaction,”
After all, she says, a road trip is never
search of answers and adventure, and in
Basi says. “It needed a lightness to it in
just about the destination.
hopes of honoring her family, she takes
order to find a readership.” Basi says
A Song for the Road follows Miriam, a
148
The book can be described as
a road trip across the country. But no
she also knew she couldn't write a book
recently widowed mother who lost her
road trip is complete without obstacles,
about a woman traveling across the
husband and twin teenagers in a drunk
twists and turns, and Miriam faces her
country alone, which helped lead her to
driving accident one year ago. She tries
fair share, both external and internal.
create the character of Dicey, a young,
INSIDE COLUMBIA MAY/JUNE 2022
