The Leisure Seeker: A Novel

I am so happy Michael Zadoorian wrote this book that I have to tell you about it.The Leisure Seeker, named after a particular model of recreational vehicle, is about John and Ella, a Midwestern couple in their eighties, fading fast, taking one last road trip. John has Alzheimers and Ella, end-stage cancer. The story is told in Ella's plain, smart, funny voice (I kept thinking she sounded like Roseanne Barr).Zadoorian writes with such humor that I found myself laughing all the way through what should have been a painful story. I loved Ella's wit and strength, and her lonely vulnerability which she keeps at bay while navigating this final voyage. She is mentally sharp but physically frail. John is the opposite. Of all the parts of his brain that are fading to black, the driving part still thrives. John is a good driver, obedient to Ella's directions. Of course, he's unreliable - she must take the keys from the ignition when they stop to ensure he doesn't drive off without her. And the gun she hides in her purse. She says that between the two of them they make one complete person.Throughout the story, Zadoorian offers homage to a bygone America, and a certain kind of American. In Ella's words:"We are the people who stay. We stay in our homes and pay them off. We stay at our jobs. We do our thirty and come home to stay even more. We stay until we are no longer able to mow our lawns and our gutters sag with saplings, until our houses look haunted to the neighborhood children. We like it where we are. I guess then the other question is: Why do we even travel? There can be only one answer to that: we travel to appreciate home."The Leisure Seeker shows us what it's like to experience Alzheimer's, and in spite of the humor and periods of relative normalcy, the devastation is heartbreaking, as when John repeats this cycle: learning that a dear friend has died, grieving, forgetting, and then learning all over again of the death and experiencing the grief full-force all over again. Repeatedly. To spare him, Ella has learned to lie. The friend is fine, she says; he's just been busy.I loved how they watched movies almost every night, wherever they camped. John sets up the slide projector and hangs a sheet on the side of the RV, Ella fixes cocktails, and they relive the memories of being a family, and of seeing their two kids growing up. One night, as Ella and John view slides of the 1967 Seattle World's Fair, a group of young people watch from the shadows. Ella invites them to sit closer. Beers are opened and the two generations, far apart in age, mingle and comment at the miniskirts and go-go boots.Zadoorian never belabors any of this. When the story evokes the reader's tears, it's manageable, because Ella is strong. Her reflections on life are ours, and in just the right amount. The author never tells us how to think. He simply rolls the film. I liked that he had the skill and confidence to let us draw our own conclusions.You know what I loved the most about this book? It made me stop worrying so much about being middle-aged; in fact, after I finished it, I felt downright young. And it gave me courage: I felt like maybe, whatever comes in the future as a result of aging and disease, I'll follow Ella's example and handle it.

Michael Zadoorian's The Leisure Seeker is about many things, chief of which, I suppose, is growing old and all the aches, pains, illnesses and infirmities that go along with aging. It's also an achingly sweet love story that has spanned sixty years. John and Ella Robina, now in their 80s and on a fast-track downslope to the end of the trail, aren't quite ready to wrap things up yet. Or at least Ella isn't. John, in the middle-stages of dementia or Alzheimer's, drifts in and out of lucidity throughout the narrative, told from Ella's point-of-view. Ella who is in the end stages of cancer, and has resisted all the pain, sickness and indignities that she knows chemo and radiation therapy would add to the already often piercing pain of her cancer. So they pack up their mini-RV and leave their suburban Detroit home and hit the road for Disneyland.Zadoorian is a good storyteller, and a skillful one. Small details of the trip and the places they pass through and things they see are often pertinent to the final predicament of the old couple, a foreshadowing of what's to come. A ghost town on the Texas-New Mexico border is described as "unsettling ... hollowed out, yet gorged with memories. Still ... there are ruins here to hint at the past."In another scene reflecting the similarities of the beginning and end of life, Ella gives advice to a young mother with a colicky baby, suggesting the parents take the baby for a drive -"Then I wonder to myself: Does a feeling of movement soothe a new baby in the same way it soothes an old woman? ... New to the earth and not long for it somehow don't seem so different these days."Ella thinks often too about what happens after death, not at all certain about things like an afterlife, heaven and God. Zadoorian plays with this in a scene where John picks up the slide projector while it's showing an image of the two and the picture veers wildly about until - "finally, into the sky, where it is released completely, a mist of light ..."Ella's speculations along these lines continue later - "A gleaming world of energy and light, where nothing is quite the same as it is on earth - everything bluer, greener, redder. Or maybe we just become the colors, that light spilling from the sky ..."There is much humor here too, of course, the kind of gentle, old folks funny stuff you read in the comic strip PICKLES; you know, the Earl and Opal kind of absent-minded, forgetful silliness. But much of the humor in The Leisure Seeker takes on a darker hue, always colored by the knowledge of John's dementia and Ella's cancer and the inescapable consequences of both. Zadoorian also manages to poke a little gentle fun at his own heritage in a bit about the boyfriend who dumped Ella during the war for some "round-heeled Armenian broad. He wound up marrying her, after knocking her up."The darker edges of this sweet story are always lurking, however. Because no matter how much John and Ella love each other, even love can't stave off the inevitable. The ending, which is set, ironically, in The Best Destination RV Park, just a few miles from Disneyland, will break your heart, even if you may have guessed it was coming. My wife, as she raced toward the end of this book, sat at our kitchen table crying into her chicken soup, as she turned the final page. Now I've read it too and I understand why. Bittersweet thought the ending may be, Michael Zadoorian has written a lovely story - a love story for old folks. I will recommend it highly. - Tim Bazzett, author of BOOKLOVER

This was such a wonderful book full of beautiful writing that I'm not sure a movie can do it justice. One of the main differences is that in the book, the two main characters escape from their home in Detroit and take a road trip to Disneyland, following Route 66 as much as possible.Ella and John are in their 80s, they have been married for over 60 years and both have end of life health problems - John has Alzheimers and Ella has cancer. Ella feels that they need one more camping trip together so they sneak away from their home in Detroit, their two concerned children and their doctors and take a road trip. As they travel, John often has no clue where they are or who Ella is. Ella is fighting constant pain but feels the need to forge ahead and make it to the Pacific. Does this sound depressing? Believe me, it's anything but depressing. It's thoughtful and funny and fantastically entertaining. Ella tells the story and she is so funny that there were parts of the story that made me laugh out loud. She also made many observations that really made me think about life will be like in those final years.“Why does the world have to destroy anything that doesn't fit in? We still can’t figure out this is the most important reason to love something.”“Anyone who never met a man he didn't like just isn't trying hard enough.”“After a while, just staying alive becomes a full-time job. No wonder we need a vacation.”This is a wonderful well written book about the final road trip of an elderly couple who want to be together and having fun until the end. It proves that when it comes to life, you can go back for seconds—even when everyone says you can't.

Primero vi la película, por lo que me intereso leer el libro. Como siempre, la novela en que basaron la película es mil veces mejor. Una tierna historia de amor con un final inesperado, pero que demuestra el gran amor que había en esa pareja. Maravilloso y dulce.

I really enjoyed this book. It was well written and the characters has such real identities. I felt like I was travelling with them. It was touching how much they loved each other and the frustration of their illnesses was well described. I routed for them as they made it to their destination and empathized with them on their final decision. I understood the decision and wished Ella & John well.

Nice gentle story about retirement with a surprising end.

See the movie first. It's magnificent on its own with lots of hidden gems. But if you read the book first, you may not realize it.And if you saw the movie, read the book. There just are too many things that couldn't be described in the movie. Plus, it's easy to read. And it's too precious to put down.

I thought the book was well written. It had a flow to it even though I knew it wouldn’t have a happy ending.