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    The Leisure Seeker: A Novel
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    The Leisure Seeker: A Novel
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    The Leisure Seeker: A Novel
    Ebook253 pages4 hours

    The Leisure Seeker: A Novel

    By Michael Zadoorian

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    The unforgettable cross country journey of a runaway couple in their twilight years determined to meet the end of all roads on their own terms—a major motion picture from Sony Pictures Classics starring Helen Mirren and Donald Sutherland.

    The Robinas have shared a wonderful life for more than sixty years. Now in their eighties, Ella suffers from cancer and John has Alzheimer's. Yearning for one last adventure, the self-proclaimed "down-on-their-luck geezers" kidnap themselves from the adult children and doctors who seem to run their lives and steal away from their home in suburban Detroit on a forbidden vacation of rediscovery.

    With Ella as his vigilant copilot, John steers their '78 Leisure Seeker RV along the forgotten roads of Route 66 toward Disneyland in search of a past they're having a damned hard time remembering. Yet Ella is determined to prove that, when it comes to life, you can go back for seconds—even when everyone says you can't.

    “The Leisure Seeker is pretty much like life itself: joyous, painful, moving, tragic, mysterious, and not to be missed.”—Booklist, starred review

     

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateOct 6, 2009
    ISBN9780061984518
    Unavailable
    The Leisure Seeker: A Novel
    Author

    Michael Zadoorian

    Michael Zadoorian is the author of the critically acclaimed novel Second Hand.

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    Reviews for The Leisure Seeker

    4/5

    22 ratings16 reviews

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    • 5/5
      This book was incredible. It really captured an unvarnished look at life at the end ... how a married couple facing life’s biggest challenges-cancer and Alzheimer’s-run away from their children in their RV to relive their memories on the road. You will love this book. Ella is witty, wise and a wise mouth. Her husband is both senile and profound.
    • 5/5
      What can I say about this wonderful read except go to Costco and buy a case of Kleenex before you read the first paragraph!! This book is one that stays with you and gets to your very soul. This is what a book is all about. This is why I have a passion for reading. You will not be disappointed with this fine piece of literature
    • 4/5
      As someone who was born in Detroit, grew up in the northwest suburbs, and lived in the general area for most of my first 40+ years of life, I enjoyed Michael Zadoorian's short story collection, The Lost Tiki Palaces of Detroit, and, now, this novel about an elderly Michigan couple. Ella Robina has terminal cancer; her husband, John, is starting to fade away with Alzheimer's. Thinking about the short amount of time they have left and the many adventures they've enjoyed in the past, Ella decides that they need to rev up their Leisure Seeker RV one more time. Her goal: to follow old Route 66 all the way from Detroit to Disneyland in California. Along the way, they run into good folks and some not-so-good folks, and John and Ella each have their good days and some not-so-good days. But there's never any doubt that this trip was just what they needed--despite their doctors' and children's objections.Zadoorian creates in Ella, his narrator, the kind of little old lady that you'd never think of calling a little old lady: she's spunky, outspoken, and resourceful, and even though she's well into her eighties and not in the best of health, she shows a real interest in other people. The novel depicts some frustrating moments, some painful ones, and some that will m ake you laugh; but most of all, it depicts the enduring strength and memory of love.I'll definitely be looking for more of Zadoorian's work, and I hope he keeps sneaking in those Michigan references (Faygo, the big tire, et al).
    • 3/5
      Very romantic and very sad. An elderly couple decides to take a final road trip before the end of their lives. Neither is in great health (the husband has Alzheimer's, the wife has cancer), and the trip is hard, but they would rather take this trip than sit at home or in a hospital. Their children freak out, but ultimately these are two adults and there is not much they can do.Everyone should have the right to live the way they want to, even or especially at the end of a long life. They reminisce and travel. I felt that this was very gentle, with two very believable characters. Very sad, but feels true.
    • 5/5
      I think that everyone who is a Baby Boomer or in the sandwich generation needs to read this book. Even though this book will make you laugh so hard that you work at have to keep from crying, it poses a very important ethical question. The latter, you will become aware as you this book. Ella and John are couple in their eighties that I would love to have lived next door to. When you are that old, why spend time pleasing people? Why not do what is best for you? Ella is a witty, sarcastic woman who has terminal cancer. She doesn't mess around, she speaks her mind. She deeply loves her husband John and doesn't want another round of radiation and chemotherapy. What she wants is one last road trip, this time to Disneyland. John is her husband, he married her after WWII. He can be very stubborn, loving and has Alzheimer's. He calls Ella, his lover and thinks of her as the most beautiful woman that he has ever seen. A side story of this book is about Route 66 in past and present. I remember many of the things that she mentions in the book like Stuckey's nut rolls. But it also makes me think of the tiny red signs for Burma Shave that we used to see when driving long ago. So, if you are a fan of history about Route 66, you will really enjoy this story. There are so many things that I loved about this book. I cannot think of any negative criticism at all. It will make you, laugh, cry, get mad, get scared and be brave and enjoy life with Ella and John on Route 66.
    • 5/5
      Just fantastic! Ella's tone is perfection (I was somewhat surprised that this was written by a man; he certainly captured a woman's perspective flawlessly).
    • 4/5
      Delightful, witty and tender and real, highly recommended - its likely to suprise you.Perhaps all the more personally since it echoes my own grandparents relationship.
    • 4/5
      I loved the voice of Ella in this book - matter-of-fact, content with herself, in charge. I loved the glimpses of the life Ella and John have made with each other - the moments when John remembers, when they are themselves together again. This is an unconventional road trip story, and I was torn between fear for the couple and sorrow for the difficulties that old age and sickness bring. Despite that, there are moments of real humor in the book, and I admired Ella so much for her strength.
    • 4/5
      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.
    • 4/5
      As busy as Mothers’ Day weekend was, I found time to spend a few hours lingering over Michael Zadoorian’s bittersweet second novel. It was the most rewarding few hours I’ve had in a long time. But I was totally caught napping and unprepared for the sucker punch that was part of the package.Ella and John Robina are retired and sick, she with cancer and he with Alzheimer’s. They want to get in one last trip in their camper (the Leisure Seeker), so they defy their doctors and children and set out from their Detroit home to travel the length of Rt. 66 from Lake Michigan to the Pacific Ocean. The book tells the story of their journey, the people they meet and the stops they make along the way. A wry, tender novel, filled with dark humor, and episodes of comic relief, we follow Ella and John through small towns and historical landmarks and along the way we get to know them very well. The author provides us with glimpses of life when you’re near the end of the road and the irony of coming to the end of Rt. 66 parallels the lives of these two. Rundown seedy towns, neglected stores and tourist venues dot the route that has been by-passed by the super highways that could get them to their destination so much faster.Zadoorian presents a cynical look at life that’s bound to accompany the old age and illness that we’re all destined to face at some point. Every evening they spread a white sheet on the side of their camper, and watch slides of previous vacations, time gone by:“I think about the people in the slides, most of them gone now, heart attacks and cancers, betrayed by the foods we ate, by our La-Z-Boys, by our postwar contentment, everyone getting larger and larger in every year’s photographs, our prosperity gone wide.” (page 57)The author throws more than a few gems our way:“We pass a church with a massive blue neon cross, and I am spiritually lifted by feelings of great religiosity. No, I’m not, for crying out loud. Don’t be ridiculous. But what I do love about this road is how the gaudy becomes grand, how tastelessness is a way of everyday life.”(page 37)And Ella reveals a complete distrust for the authenticity of Will Rogers:“We pass on the Will Rogers Memorial in Claremore. I never much cared for the man. A big phony, I believe. Anyone who never met a man he didn’t like just isn’t trying hard enough.” (page 79)I grew fond of these two curmudgeons whose love for each other is unparalleled and I could have gone on reading about them forever. Highly recommended.
    • 3/5
      A sweet tale that looks at illness, aging and end-of-life choices, Ride along with Ella and John for one last road trip to the end of the line where they decide their own fate. Touching and funny.
    • 5/5
      A book does not have to be of great literary merit to win my round of applause. It does, however, have to strike a chord within my soul, as does this bittersweet story by Michael Zadoorian of an elderly, declining couple who go on a road trip in a motor home with their destination as Disneyland. Does this sound silly? It’s anything but that. It’s a story of love, fear, determination, and joy. In fact, it made me laugh on one page, cry on the next, and run away quickly on the following page to copy down some notable quotes. What this author can do is hit the right notes. It tells the poignant story of aging, both physical and mental decline. For a long time it’s a process which we see others doing, but eventually we all see this on our own horizon. As a result, this book may be less interesting to a younger person, but for someone nearing or in his golden years, this book totally expresses our feelings.
    • 4/5
      This is the oddly enthralling story of an elderly couple, on their last legs with Alzheimers and incurable cancer, who escape their worried children and endless medical appointments by setting out in their little RV on a roadtrip across the US. I was completely won over by these characters - funny, spirited and unflinchingly authentic.
    • 5/5
      Call it the ultimate road trip, or perhaps liken it to THE BUCKET LIST, Michael Zadoorian presents a poignant, humorous, tender tale that the reader can tell must be drawn to some extent from personal experience. THE LEISURE SEEKER is a love story woven around a couple with such warmth and care that they will haunt you for a long time, but in a way that you will welcome each time you think of them. Their somewhat ironic story is so well written, with just the right touch of humor that you will laugh out loud, cry, smile, and want to tell those close to you all about it. Ella and John Robina have shared a life for over 50 years and so now in their eighties they ‘run away from home’ leaving behind their grown children and their families, a medical team bent on treating Ella’s incurable cancer and John’s Alzheimer’s, and their beloved Detroit. Their journey will revisit the places and trips from their past that they shared with their children and friends as they make their way to their ultimate destination, Disneyland. Ella feels Disneyland is the perfect place because, as she says “After all, at this point in our lives, we are more like children than ever. Especially John.”Ella, is spunky and not worried about John’s dementia as she says, “It’s all right. I’m the keeper of the memories” and feels they will be fine because “Between the two of us, we are one whole person.” John drives their seasoned 1978 Leisure Seeker RV and is quite capable and in fact seems better driving for hours on end as he is increasingly less lucid during normal everyday activities. Ella, meanwhile, has not driven in over 30 years, so she is the navigator and seeks out all the kitschy, tacky tourist stops along their chosen path of travel on Route 66 to California. Popping Pepcid first, they eat at several Route 66 Diners, but McDonalds remains John’s favorite. From the start of the route, Ella throws caution to the wind, along with her wig, as she enjoys the sun on her almost bald scalp after so long without this feeling of freedom. Museums, giant “must see” statues, ghost towns, Stuckey’s and the famous pecan log by day, and by night at their campsite, Ella and John relive their life together through old slides that they project on a sheet. This is more than a “Kodak Moment”; this is a retelling of their love story, of their lives together. Park neighbors venture by and share in the love and courage these two people have lived through as the cinematic interpretations flash across the simple screen. With many a mishap, as well as much joy, the Robinas make it to Disneyland as each of them, especially Ella, exhibits rapidly declining health, the increased dependence on medication to treat Ella’s “discomfort”, and John’s lack of hygiene and control, physically and mentally. What happens at their final destination is told with such care by an author who clearly knew his subject and how to tell about it. With Michael Zadoorian’s beautifully phrased descriptions, such as when he describes the campsite in early evening for Ella by saying “Twilight slips in like a timid creature”, one knows they are holding something special in their hands. The ending will come too quickly for the reader as it truly is a book you can’t put down. I read it in one sitting and it left me with much to ponder, appreciate, and continue to contemplate even after I closed the book. The ending is affecting in ways, while remarkable and fitting in others. Do not miss this book as it is a joy to treasure and makes it quite clear why Michael Zadoorian was selected for Barnes & Noble’s Discover Great New Writers after only his first book, SECOND HAND. What shall Mr. Zadoorian be selected for after this superb second novel? You decide as I already have! Submitted Originally to BOOKIN’ WITH BINGO by Karen Haney, February, 2009
    • 5/5
      Maybe because we travel in a fifth wheel part time, after camping for years with our kids, I could relate to many parts of this story. I do not know much about the author but he has a lot of insight on the camping lifestyle and on old age. Maybe it is experiential.But the story was funny, sad, romantic and poignant. I did not put it down once I started it. Will look into his other book.
    • 4/5
      The Leisure Seeker by Michael Zadoorian is the story of two people, Ella and John, who have been married for more than 50 years. Ella has cancer and John has Alzheimer’s. Tired of treatments and procedures and doctors’ appointments, Ella has decided to go on a final vacation in their RV, the Leisure Seeker, forgoing any more medical care, much to the consternation of their two adult children. What follows is the ultimate road trip. Ella and John’s journey follows as much as possible the old Route 66, to their final destination, Disneyland. They have travelled frequently most of their married life and memories are shared of previous trips taken alone and with their children. Ella has brought along their collection of slides from previous journeys and we learn of their history through these slide shows and Ella’s reminiscences. At times hysterically funny and at other times terribly poignant, The Leisure Seeker is a story of a marriage and a deep and abiding love. The writing is extremely good, clear and precise. You will not soon forget Ella and John.