When I was asked if I was interested in reviewing Off the Tracks, I was a little skeptical. A book about train travel, written during the pandemic when you couldn’t travel? Thinking about travel? How meta will that be?
I gave it a shot, and I’m glad I did.
Off the Tracks is a warm and insightful book on the human experience of travel.
Pamela Mulloy drew upon her extensive travel experience to talk about travel (mostly by train, but not always), weaving historical facts and stories and her own stories together into a pleasant and meaningful book.
I knew I was getting into the book when I started highlighting sentences with my e-reader. The writing reminded me a bit of Emily St. John Mandel’s work Station Eleven. I’m not talking about the pandemic – Station Eleven‘s pandemic was far worse than COVID – but more St. John Mandel’s habit of dropping pearls of wisdom in the middle of the narrative. You’re reading along, and bam! a seriously insightful sentence makes you pause and think.
Off the Tracks is best read in several sittings. It’s a collection of essays with a common theme – trains and travel – tied together by the inability to travel during the pandemic. I read one or two chapters at a time and it worked well for me.
I especially liked the descriptions of train travel in North America and in Europe. Author Pamela Mulloy is Canadian, from the Maritimes and now living in Ontario. Reading her description of travel aboard the Ocean between Montreal and Halifax made me recall my many times photographing that train. Good memories.
This 192 page book is available at the usual places, like Indigo, Barnes and Noble and Amazon and probably your local bookstore.