To Shake the Sleeping Self

September 3, 2018
Following loosely in the footsteps of his parents, authors of A Walk Across America (first published in 1979), Jenkins tells of his bike trip from Oregon to Patagonia in this thought-provoking and inspirational memoir. He decided on the expedition because he felt his “youth was passing” as he was about to turn 30. He believed travel would resensitize him to life, and also thought the journey would help him square his identity as a gay man with his beliefs as a Christian. Much of his writing focuses on his internal feelings—a mix of emotional dives into his past, present, and future—rather than the physical journey. Still, there’s some fun and vibrant travel writing here, including stories about tripping on mushrooms, seeing a butterfly migration, and exploring Machu Picchu. Jenkins is joined briefly by Weston, an improvising free spirit who loves weed and shuns money and religions; he plays foil to Jenkins and adds levity while challenging the author’s beliefs. The narrative is about the journey, not the destination, and though Jenkins doesn’t find all the answers, he does feel “a warm direction, a positive pulling toward something else.” This uplifting memoir and travelogue will remind readers of the power of movement for the body and the soul.

September 1, 2018
Or, evangelism and the art of bicycle maintenance on a long journey of self-discovery.Instagram personality Jenkins works a familiar trope: a challenging season of travel as a means of finding out what makes him tick and working out the big questions. Granted, his travel was far more challenging than most, as he decided to leave a job and a life that afforded him plenty of satisfactions in order to ride a bicycle from Oregon to the tip of South America. "It wasn't the job that chased me away," he writes of hitting the 30-year-old mark, "it was mortality." He adds, meaningfully, that he had plenty of background; what remained was to acquire experience, or "background and tools," with which to live his life henceforth. The trip took 16 months and brought him a built-in audience for this memoir as he posted photographs and observations to social media. In the company of an adventurous friend, Jenkins found plenty of occasions for that self-discovery, sifting through the wreckage of family crises, wrestling with sexual identity, and grappling with questions of faith and religious belief. "I think that you're scared, and that's bullshit," said his friend after a critical moment that managed to touch on most of these points. "I just want you to be free." Jenkins gets there--to that freedom, that is, and also to Patagonia. His account runs a little long, some of it a mere slideshow of impressions ("Mexico City is a beast"; "It was beautiful, the air was clean, the light angled just right"). Other moments are more successful, though. The author is especially good at eliciting wisdom, even if sometimes of a loopy kind, from the people he encountered--his traveling companion in particular but also people like a young Argentinian woman who confided that she wants to do a road trip through the U.S.: "I want to see the empire before it falls."Jenkins' many Instagram followers won't be disappointed.

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