BOOK REVIEW: TRAVELING HEAVY by RUTH BEHAR

Traveling Heavy:

A Memoir in between Journeys

Ruth Behar

Duke University Press

Pub Date:   Apr 25 2013

• ISBN9780822354673

 

About the book . . . 

Traveling Heavy is a deeply moving, unconventional memoir by the master storyteller and cultural anthropologist Ruth Behar. Through evocative stories, she portrays her life as an immigrant child and later, as an adult woman who loves to travel but is terrified of boarding a plane. With an open heart, she writes about her Yiddish-Sephardic-Cuban-American family, as well as the strangers who show her kindness as she makes her way through the world. Compassionate, curious, and unafraid to reveal her failings, Behar embraces the unexpected insights and adventures of travel, whether those be learning that she longed to become a mother after being accused of giving the evil eye to a baby in rural Mexico, or going on a zany pilgrimage to the Behar World Summit in the Spanish town of Bejar.

Behar calls herself an anthropologist who specializes in homesickness. Repeatedly returning to her homeland of Cuba, unwilling to utter her last goodbye, she is obsessed by the question of why we leave home to find home. For those of us who travel heavy with our own baggage, Behar is an indispensable guide, full of grace and hope, in the perpetual search for connection that defines our humanity. 

 

Trailer for Traveling Heavy by Ruth Behar

About the author . . . 

Ruth Behar was born in Havana, Cuba. She and her family moved to New York City when she was five. In the years since, she has become an internationally acclaimed writer and the Victor Haim Perera Collegiate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Michigan. She is the author of many books, including An Island Called Home: Returning to Jewish Cuba; The Vulnerable Observer: Anthropology that Breaks Your Heart; and Translated Woman: Crossing the Border with Esperanza's Story, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. In addition to her work as an anthropologist, Behar is a poet, a fiction writer, and a documentary filmmaker. She wrote, directed, and produced Adio Kerida/Goodbye Dear Love, a film that has been shown at film festivals around the world. Behar has been honored with many prizes, including a MacArthur "Genius" Award.  

Author's website

 

Reader review . . . 

Ruth Behar came to the United States with her Sephardic Jewish family when she was five years old from Cuba.  Although she grew to adulthood here in the States, the pull of her Cuban homeland  has never left her.  In her memoir, she tells of her many travels back to the island in search of her heritage.

Her story, told in the first-person,  is viewed in a series of flashbacks in a non-linear narrative.  This works well and does not prove to be confusing to the reader.  Her memories of her grandparents are especially moving, while her travels in Mexico contain amusing moments.  

Poignant memoir of an immigrant and her family.

5 stars

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the NetGalley book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 <http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_03/16cfr255_03.html> : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”