Ammalie is recently widowed, in her 50s and is on a hero's journey to places where her husband's been while he was a bachelor and then later while she stayed home with their young child.
There are three places she has on her list that also have keys to them and instead of taking the easy way of flying to these places and staying in hotels, she wants to rough it out. She sees this as a chance to resolve the nagging feelings she's had for a long time. She packs up her rickety car with a sleeping bag and other essentials necessary to survive on the road and wilderness. Leaving Chicago behind she heads to the first of her three destinations, a remote cabin, deep in the forest. With each destination she gets to know herself more and more and surviving alone in the wilderness gives her a sense of self and achievement.
I liked how she undertook a journey of this magnitude to prove to herself and her dead husband that she was more than what they made of her. Whatever her reasons were at the start, they evolved and made her shine in her own eyes.
Leaving behind the roles of her life up till then, she goes on a literal and internal journey. While one can romanticise the road trip to their heart's content, we also see the good, bad, and ugly practical realities of such a journey.
What keeps the reader's attention are the moments that become crucial, pivotal, introspective and dangerous parts of the trip. What's also interesting and grabbing is the beautiful moments/times when she makes connections with other humans as part of passing through, on her way to the next part of the trip.
The part of the trip I enjoyed most or held close to was the last part of Ammalie going to New Zealand. It was beautiful both in terms of the landscape and her experiences there. It nicely brought the whole story together, ready for her next chapter in life.
This book is great for times when you want to sit back and lose yourself in a journey, one which you wish you would've taken. So pick up a copy while you wait for the time you too can go on your own hero's journey and live vicariously through Ammalie's road trip of a lifetime.
Becoming invisible is painful . . . unless you know how to work it.
Ammalie Brinks has just lost the three keys of her life’s purpose—her husband, her job, and her role as a mom, after her son went off to college. She’s also mystified to find herself in middle age: How exactly had that happened? The terrifying idea of becoming irrelevant, invisible, of letting her life slip away Into obscurity, has her driving distracted through Nebraska with a broken plastic fork in her tangled hair.
But what Ammalie has found are three literal keys, saved in a drawer for years, from her and her husband’s past. They are the keys to homes that she hopes will be empty—and plans on spending time in. Embarking on an international and increasingly complicated journey (criminal behavior turns out to be challenging!), she seeks to find a life truly her own. And that middle-age business? As someone breaking the law, Ammalie finds there's a real benefit to being invisible when you’re working on becoming the striking, bold, and very much manifested self you want to be.
Laura Pritchett, winner of the PEN USA Award for Fiction and the Colorado Book Award, offers a delightful exploration of the very serious business of living a full and honest life. Filled with love, heartbreak, and misdemeanors, Three Keys tackles the unavoidable sorrows and joys experienced during a second coming of age with the zest and vigor that it deserves.
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