A reader writes:
In response to Vanessa Vaselka’s thoughtful essay on the lack of female road narratives, there is, of course, Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, which is a quest narrative in the long tradition of Western quest narratives that also addresses issues of gender roles and expectations about female sexuality. There are also many travel narratives written by female authors which also raise Vaselka’s concern about rape and violence. While there are many other kinds of exploration based upon careful attention and observation – I’m thinking about Dickinson and Marianne Moore, for example – these writers reinforce Vaselka’s point in other ways. Katherine Anne Porter’s short story “Flowering Judas,” about an American woman active in revolutionary politics in Mexico in the early 1920’s, yet intensely self-protective against male sexual advances and potential sexual assault, also speaks to Vaselka’s concerns.
Another reader suggests:
While it lacks the fame of Huck Finn, there is a really weird and wonderful book about the world’s greatest hitchhiker, a beautiful woman with massive oversized thumbs called Even Cowgirls Get The Blues by Tom Robbins. Sissy meets all sorts of people from a fashion designer to Jack Kerouac to a bunch of Lesbian Cowgirls and the sex guru/hermit that watches over them the hills of the badlands.
The trailer for the film adaptation is seen above.
The Dish 