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The Sunset Route: Freight Trains, Forgiveness, and Freedom on the Rails in the American West Kindle Edition
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER • “An urgent read. A courageous life. Quinn’s story burns through us and bleeds beauty on every page.”—Noé Álvarez, author of Spirit Run: A 6,000-Mile Marathon Through North America’s Stolen Land
After a childhood marked by neglect, poverty, and periods of homelessness, with a mother who believed herself to be the reincarnation of the Virgin Mary, Carrot Quinn moved out on her own. She found a sense of belonging among straight-edge anarchists who taught her how to traverse the country by freight trains, sleep in fields under the stars, and feed herself by foraging in dumpsters. Her new life was one of thrilling adventure and freedom, but still she was haunted by the ghosts of her lonely and traumatic childhood.
The Sunset Route is a powerful and brazenly honest adventure memoir set in the unseen corners of the United States—in the Alaskan cold, on trains rattling through forests and deserts, as well as in low-income apartments and crowded punk houses—following a remarkable protagonist who has witnessed more tragedy than she thought she could ever endure and who must learn to heal her own heart. Ultimately, it is a meditation on the natural world as a spiritual anchor, and on the ways that forgiveness can set us free.
- Print length320 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherThe Dial Press
- Publication dateJuly 6, 2021
- File size1.4 MB
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Editorial Reviews
Review
“An urgent read. A courageous life. Quinn’s story burns through us and bleeds beauty on every page.”—Noé Álvarez, author of Spirit Run: A 6,000-Mile Marathon Through North America's Stolen Land
“At once a high-speed journey through the gritty heart of the American West and a wrenching memoir of tragedy and transcendence, The Sunset Route held me rapt from start to finish. In lush, reverent prose, Carrot Quinn describes the roots of her pain and the natural world in which she found solace and solidarity. The result is a singular work of adventure, kinship, and grace I didn’t want to end, and will never forget.”—Allie Rowbottom, author of Jell-O Girls
“Carrot Quinn has faced brutal hardships in her life and still manages to have hope and to see profound beauty in this broken world. A wild, inspiring story, at once gutting and uplifting, The Sunset Route is a remarkable portrait of self-discovery—and it made me want to join Carrot on a train across the country.”—Cameron Esposito, author of Save Yourself
“The Sunset Route is at once rhapsodic and harrowing. Quinn delivers a raw and unflinching account of both the constant movement and the graceful stillness required to truly know oneself. . . . Gritty and wondrous.”—Kristin Knight Pace, author of This Much Country
About the Author
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
I crouch in the dark railcar, gripping a plastic tarp around me. The cold wind beats at my face. Beyond the metal lip of the car is the black fir forest of Oregon's Cascade Mountains, the trees silhouettes against the bright, moonlit snow. These trees bear witness to my train rushing past, train cars rocking and groaning as we hurtle along the track at sixty miles an hour. I press my numb fingers into my palm, counting off the hours until dawn. One, two, three, four. I pull the water bottle from my pack and shake it—empty. When did I drink the last of it? I can't remember. All night I've been drifting in and out of a dim, strange place without time, too cold to really sleep. I remember the moment, earlier today, when I lost my sleeping bag to the train. I'd just woken from a nap. The thundering of the train was ceaseless, the slice of sky visible above the lip of our railcar empty of trees. I looked over at my friend Sami, curled in her sleeping bag on the other side of the car, and I figured I'd cross the railcar to talk to her, since there was too much noise for us to shout. For stability, I gripped the underside of the semi-truck trailer that sat in the railcar as I worked my way along the narrow ledge between the two large holes in the floor of the car, over to Sami's side. I sat next to her on her sleeping pad and we shouted about our wonder and shared a bag of dried mango. The train slowed and then lurched, picking up speed again. This turned the four-foot-wide hole in the floor into a vacuum of strong, sucking wind, and my zero-degree sleeping bag, which I'd just shoplifted the day before for this trip, rose from the foam pad onto which I'd unstuffed it, tumbled a bit, and was slurped into the hole as if into a hell-mouth, gone forever.
I started laughing, dried mango stuck to my teeth, too shocked to do anything else. Sami stared at the hole, horrified. It was February, and the low farmlands of the Willamette Valley were dark with gray clouds that never left, resulting in a persistent cold drizzle that stung your cheeks. I might be okay without a sleeping bag here. But in a matter of hours our train would climb into the Cascades, and we weren't entirely sure, but we figured it would be colder up there. Maybe there would even be snow.
'F*** f*** f***!' I yelled, into the wind.
'I have a tarp you can use,' Sami shouted at me. She pulled a folded blue bundle from the top of her pack. I took it gratefully. It would be dark soon, and there wouldn't be anything to do but bed down in the rumble and the wind and wait for dawn. I crossed back to my side of the car and sat on my foam pad, taking stock of my things. I had a wool sweater, a flannel shirt, a hat, a pair of gloves, a rain jacket. I was wearing heavy, double-knee Carhartts and leather hiking boots, both of which I'd shoplifted. I'd be warm enough tonight with these things, wouldn't I? How cold did it get in the Cascade Mountains in February, anyway? I had a few days' worth of nuts, dried fruit, and canned beans, and one liter of water. We'd arrived at the trainyard with two liters each, and I'd drunk one of mine while waiting for our train. I was pretty sure my remaining liter wasn't enough to get me the rest of the way to Los Angeles—why hadn't I brought more? Well, there was nothing to be done now.
Now, in this late hour, I know the answer to my earlier question: it is very cold in the Cascade Mountains in February, especially when you are hurtling along at breakneck speed and you have no real protection from the wind. I pull the blue tarp tighter around me, strain to see shapes in the glittering dark. How long until we cross from Oregon into California, and then drop down into the warm desert? And how long until we reach L.A., our destination? One more day? Three? The fir forest blurs past, its hollows piled with snow. The trees observe without judgment, as they have for my entire life.
I think back to two days ago when Sami and I were sitting on the lip of this railcar, having just climbed onto the train.
'It's okay,' she said. 'This car is safe.'
The railcar was shaped like a shoebox with no top, and we were looking down inside it. The car didn't look rideable. It looked dangerous. Instead of a solid metal floor, there were two large holes, each four feet across, through which we could see the train tracks. On either side of each of these holes was just a scrap of floor, about twelve inches wide. This ledge was where we would sleep, eat, and hang out until our train reached L.A. To complicate things further, the back half of a semi-truck was sitting in this railcar. We would have to crawl between the huge truck tires to get to the little ledges where we could rest, each of us on one side of one of the large holes. Our view would be the hoses and grimy pipes of the underside of the truck. The truck's mud flaps would be our only protection from the wind.
'See,' said Sami as she jumped down into the car. 'Perfectly safe.' She pulled off her large canvas military backpack and pushed it in front of her, under the axle of the truck. She reached a ledge and clipped the straps of her pack around a metal pipe that ran the length of the railcar. 'You attach your pack to the car so it doesn't fall in the hole when the train is moving. Then you just make sure that you don't fall in the hole.'
I followed on my hands and knees, gripping the edge of the railcar. A hiss, like a bike tire deflating, ran the length of the train, from one car to the next—the brakes releasing. I had been told to listen for this sound. The train lurched, there was a scream of twisting metal, and the tracks below us began to move. The train was moving. I had climbed onto a freight train and now it was moving!
'Shit!' said Sami. 'Get under here, quick! We don't want the bull to see us!'
'Bull,' I had recently learned, was what the rail cop was called. We were in Portland, Oregon, on the southern edge of the city, where the tidy grid of houses turned to suburbs and sprawl. We'd caught the train where our friend Andrew, who had ridden so many trains his Carhartt pants shone like waxed canvas on account of all the diesel grease, had told us to catch it—he'd told us which city bus to take south, which stop to get off at, to look for the Burger King and the underpass and the blackberry brambles, to arrive in the morning and wait under a tree out of the rain, that eventually our train would come. He told us what to look for—not grainers with no place to ride, not boxcars like in the movies, not oil tankers. Intermodal trains, that's what you wanted. Double stacks. Two colorful freight containers in a car like an open shoebox. He'd said that most of the double stacks on the train, which might be up to two miles long, would not be rideable. But one or two of them would be. We'd know by the numbers on the side of the car, and whether or not they were ridged or smooth. The train to L.A., when it arrived (it came every day but Sunday, Andrew had said), would stop for fifteen minutes, max. That's all the time that we would have.
Our train had come, it had slowed, it had stilled. We'd run along it on the slanted ballast, lungs burning, tripping over the railroad ties. Our packs jostled against our backs and the resting cars ticked, ticked, as though alive. The units—that's what the engines are called and there were four of them on this train, enough to pull it up and over the Cascades—were far ahead, so far we couldn't see them, nor could we be seen by the engineers that manned them. We'd found this car that was, according to Sami, perfectly safe, we'd climbed inside it, and now the train had begun to move again, toward a road crossing where the bull, Andrew had said, would be parked in an unmarked white SUV. The bull would watch the train go by and look for signs that there were riders. If he saw us, he would stop the train, pull us off, and we'd get a ticket for criminal trespassing. It would be a fine, maybe some community service. Our trip would be over. If we could just make it past that road crossing, though, we'd be safe, free.
As I scrambled into the car, I could already hear the dinging of the metal arms that blocked traffic at the crossing—the sound was growing louder, closer. Blood rushed to my face. If I could just get to the small metal ledge, I could lie down, and the lip of the railcar would hide me. But as I wiggled under the axle of the semi-truck, I was exposed, alarmingly so. What if I was caught by the bull, and arrested? What if he'd already seen us?
I got myself under the truck and turned around, yanking my pack after me. It wouldn't budge. Oh shit! Oh shit, oh shit! A stronger pull and the fabric made an awful tearing sound as, at last, I freed it. I scurried onto the ledge, unrolled my foam sleeping pad, and flattened myself onto it, barely breathing, just as we pulled slowly through the road crossing. I clenched my eyes shut, wishing for invisibility. The dinging of the metal arms was all around me now—the sound felt as though it was coming from inside my skull. Why were we moving so slowly through this crossing? Was the train stopping? Were we about to get busted? Finally, the clanging receded and then, after a time, it was gone. I lifted my face and looked at Sami, whose mouth was slack with relief.
'Holy shit,' she said. The sound of her words was lost to the rumble of the train, which had picked up speed, but I could see her lips move. I laughed, and my laughter was carried away on the wind.
Product details
- ASIN : B08KSSHNBC
- Publisher : The Dial Press (July 6, 2021)
- Publication date : July 6, 2021
- Language : English
- File size : 1.4 MB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Print length : 320 pages
- Best Sellers Rank: #799,581 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
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Hi, I'm Carrot Quinn. I'm a long distance hiker and a writer. If you'd like to follow along on my adventures, including photos and blog posts from the trail, mosey on over to my blog- carrotquinn.com.
You can also follow me on instagram- instagram.com/carrotquinn
Thanks for reading!
Customer reviews
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Learn more how customers reviews work on AmazonCustomers say
Customers find the book engaging and exciting. They describe the spirit as inspiring, meaningful, and fascinating. The story is described as heartbreaking, painful, and transcendent. Readers praise the author's strength, courage, and simplicity in capturing feelings and putting them into words.
AI-generated from the text of customer reviews
Customers enjoy the engaging and exciting writing style. They appreciate the honest, straightforward prose with constant imagery and poetry in every paragraph. The language and storytelling are transportive, allowing readers to feel the acceleration, joy, and heartbreak. Readers describe the author as a masterful storyteller.
"...Carrot's captivating writing style sweeps the reader right into her pocket -- you feel as if you're there, living the story along with her as she..." Read more
"...I loved the constant imagery and poetry of every paragraph and the way the scenery was constantly painted on a canvas in front of the reader as the..." Read more
"...Carrot experiences, which is one of the many reasons this memoir is so captivating. The ride to Alaska with the Israeli lunatic was hysterical!..." Read more
"...I like her style, which is honest and straightforward. Her descriptions are wonderful; with a minimum of words she can let you feel the sand rubbing..." Read more
Customers find the book inspiring and meaningful. They describe it as a tender mix of entertaining adventure stories and heartbreaking memories. The author's genuine and generous human spirit emerges from childhood chaos. Readers appreciate the true story of courage and strength within the human spirit.
"...her story -- she shares it all -- no matter how personal, tragic, joyous, triumphant, and everything in between!..." Read more
"...This book was full of adventures, grief, spirituality via nature, and a true look at what it means to come into adulthood as a decent human while..." Read more
"...Yet the courage and beauty of a life built on ashes is stunning, inspirational and beautiful. Just read it." Read more
"...found it emotionally authentic and moving, as well as captivating and exciting. Highly recommend." Read more
Customers find the story touching and thought-provoking. They describe it as a poignant tale of tragedy, trauma, and beauty. The book is described as emotionally authentic and moving, weaving together difficult memories into golden stardust. Readers share their pain and suffering with the characters' mental illnesses. While some readers found the story stark and difficult to follow at times, they appreciated the author's unique language of pain and emptiness in poetry.
"...in sharing her story -- she shares it all -- no matter how personal, tragic, joyous, triumphant, and everything in between!..." Read more
"...This book was full of adventures, grief, spirituality via nature, and a true look at what it means to come into adulthood as a decent human while..." Read more
"...I like her style, which is honest and straightforward...." Read more
"...I found it emotionally authentic and moving, as well as captivating and exciting. Highly recommend." Read more
Customers find the book moving and courageous. They describe it as vulnerable and beautifully written.
"...and attempt the hardest physical things with such freaking grace and tenacity...." Read more
"...Her strength is amazing, her ability as a wordsmith is outstanding, she has written a book no one should miss." Read more
"...She is a master story teller and her tales are full of adventure, bravery, and heartbreak...." Read more
"...Her strength in those impossible moments, her desire to put one foot in front of the other, her desire to be seen and heard come through the pages..." Read more
Customers appreciate the simple, well-crafted story.
"...I like her style, which is honest and straightforward...." Read more
"...Carrot's writing is beautiful in its simple, lovingly composed story...." Read more
"...Painful but transcendent story. Simply and beautifully told." Read more
Top reviews from the United States
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- Reviewed in the United States on April 2, 2024I have been following Carrot's journey since 2018; I've read every single post on her Carrot Quinn website (via WordPress) and as well as her book, 'Thru Hiking Will Break Your Heart' -- that said, when her 'Sunset Route' book became available, I purchased it and could not wait to delve into it! Carrot's captivating writing style sweeps the reader right into her pocket -- you feel as if you're there, living the story along with her as she narrates it. What I most love about how Carrot writes is how honest she is in sharing her story -- she shares it all -- no matter how personal, tragic, joyous, triumphant, and everything in between! She is an inspiration not only in the many accomplishments she's achieved in the realm of thru-hiking -- she is also such an inspiration in illustrating the extent to which the human spirit can go in order to survive. I look forward to the next book she publishes as I find strength in the life-lessons and messages she discovers along her journeys and then shares with the world. Thank you, Carrot! ~ Michelle aka Chelle H.
- Reviewed in the United States on August 2, 2021I loved this book! Carrot Quinn has been in my radar for a long time as not only a writer I love reading but also as a friend I would love to have. She is interesting & strange in all the best ways & I want to read every scrap of paper she has written on. This book was full of adventures, grief, spirituality via nature, and a true look at what it means to come into adulthood as a decent human while having such a hard upbringing. I love the writing in this book the most-- lines like "My heart because the Grand Canyon. My heart was massive, yet contained nothing." I loved the constant imagery and poetry of every paragraph and the way the scenery was constantly painted on a canvas in front of the reader as the story unwound.
Carrot, I hope you read this and remember that you are worth it always. Your story has power and meaning and so much love & you give your readers all of it in your telling. Thank you for this book. Thank you for all of these words. I can't wait to read more of them.
- Reviewed in the United States on April 3, 2022Those of us with families, careers, can only dream of the adventures Carrot experiences, which is one of the many reasons this memoir is so captivating. The ride to Alaska with the Israeli lunatic was hysterical! There are parts of the book that are so very disturbing, not only the abuse when she was a child but also as a young woman who learns how to survive by shop lifting or littering the train tracks with excrement. I do believe that the experiences we have as children – good or bad – stay with us our entire lives. I truly hope she finds her “family” and I thank her for being such an honest soul.
As others mentioned the book jumps back and forth from a childhood narrative to a current one which was a bit jarring, and does not allow the reader to follow minor characters, acquaintances, friends very well. A good editor could have helped her.
Those who enjoyed Schlep or Glass Castles will find this a very good read.
- Reviewed in the United States on December 15, 2021Like some others, I've followed Carrot Quinn's blogs for years. I like hiking, backpacking and travel books with unique perspectives and stumbled on her early account of hiking across the Olympic Peninsula. Then I read her first book about hopping on trains and started following her many blogs about backpacking.
I like her style, which is honest and straightforward. Her descriptions are wonderful; with a minimum of words she can let you feel the sand rubbing her feet raw while walking across a desert, or the fear of balancing on an icy trail near a windswept peak. All the while, you catch glimpses of someone who has endured a life many of us might not survive.
But I wasn't prepared for The Sunset Route. It takes all of the above and adds a level of insight, honesty and heartbreak that's painful at times. Yet the courage and beauty of a life built on ashes is stunning, inspirational and beautiful.
Just read it.
- Reviewed in the United States on June 7, 2024Loved this author's first book and this one did not disappoint. I found it emotionally authentic and moving, as well as captivating and exciting. Highly recommend.
- Reviewed in the United States on March 25, 2022This author tells her life story growing up in a dysfunctional very poor household, and her search for her own meaning as she battles homelessness and loneliness. Sometimes confusing as she jumps from the past to the present, and in the end, it almost seems as if the author just got tired of writing the novel. Her struggle was sad and her characters’ mental illness is heartbreaking, but I expected some sort of redemption in the end.
- Reviewed in the United States on September 19, 2021Deeply felt sharply observed interior and exterior journey about a woman who suffers awful torments, poverty and rejection as a child and who hops trains and hitchikes out of those desparate circumstances to a kind of freedom. The book struck me a redemptive, fast-paced travel memoir remiscent Chatwin, Theroux and Strayed. Took me to places I couldn't imagine.
The book is rich in evocative images like her description of anorexic models in teen magazines: "it is as though someone laid the clothing on the ground, smoothed it flat, and the photoshopped in the models' head, hands and feet." Or a metaphorical climb out of Death Valley that takes every ounce of strength and endurance. At times there seemed to be more images than were required for the narrative; I suppose that's because Quinn had so many to spare.
The book has stuck with me for days after having read it. (why else add another review to the 160+?): the invisibility of children growing up in poverty, abuse and hunger, the "normality" of those who live by dumpster diving, the ambigous morality of the desparate for petty theivery and a craving for intimacy that can never be satisfied. It just seemed weird reading this while complacently sitting in my house in a comfortable chair. Good books do that.
Top reviews from other countries
- B FrostReviewed in the United Kingdom on October 22, 2023
5.0 out of 5 stars I have read both of Carrot's books now and,
I am left slightly dumfounded, by the serious degree of povety she has had to endure. First the extreme cold and next the extreme heat. Carrot is a free spirit in the true sense of the word, she will not, ever bow to the rules of domesticity and that is mostly the problem. Add to that bad parenting and you have the story of a run-away.
How much of Carrot's struggle is down to her own actions and how much is down to her parents short comings?
Did Carrot accelerate her mom's paranoia/dementure, or were Carrot's bad parenting the cause of her free-spiritedness ?
Whatever !
But one thing I cannot deny is the absolute brilliance of her writing, her prose, her sublime power over the written word.
PS. After reading this book covering Carrot's earlier years, it is small wonder that this powerhouse of a woman blitzed the PCT at her first attempt.
Respect.
- pwmReviewed in the United Kingdom on April 6, 2023
5.0 out of 5 stars beautiful
A book that puts into words the pain of trauma and neglect. Perfectly. Thank you for sharing this Carrot. Beautiful prose.
- Booksy LondonerReviewed in the United Kingdom on July 6, 2021
5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant book
I've been looking forward to reading this ever since I read Thruhiking, and it didn't disappoint. I gobbled it up and will definitely read again. A beautifully written, raw and honest account.