cover image Slowspoke: A Unicyclist's Guide to America

Slowspoke: A Unicyclist's Guide to America

Mark Schimmoeller. Synandra Press/Alice Peck Editorial, $14.95 paper (311p) ISBN 978-0-9860587-0-7

Sumptuous language and a disarming gentleness propel this profoundly simple, funny, and sincere memoir. Growing up as the child of idealistic homesteaders in Kentucky imbued Schimmoeller with a deep appreciation for nature and off-the-grid living, while leaving him feeling disconnected from the modern world. After graduating from college and finishing an unsatisfying internship at the Nation, Schimmoeller embarked on a solo journey across America on a unicycle. The author's story of finding a way to live in the world on his own terms is told simultaneously with that of his attempts to save old-growth forest adjacent to his homestead in Kentucky. "It doesn't make a difference one way or the other if I take a break," he tells a stranger who questions the intensely slow pace of his mode of transport%E2%80%94an explanation that speaks to the author's quest to find respite in a troubled world.