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Description
Within a ten-month period, Neil Peart lost both his 19-year-old daughter, Selena, and his wife, Jackie. Faced with overwhelming sadness and isolated from the world in his home on the lake, Peart was left without direction. This memoir tells of the sense of personal devastation that led him on a 55,000-mile journey by motorcycle across much of North America, down through Mexico to Belize, and back again. Peart chronicles his personal odyssey and includes stories of reuniting with friends and family, grieving, and reminiscing. He recorded with dazzling artistry the enormous range of his travel adventures, from the mountains to the seas, from the deserts to the Arctic ice, and the memorable people who contributed to his healing. Ghost Rider is a brilliantly written and ultimately triumphant narrative memoir from a gifted writer and the drummer and lyricist of the legendary rock band Rush. Read more
Publisher : ECW Press
Publication date : June 1, 2002
Edition : No
Language : English
Print length : 462 pages
ISBN-10 : 1550225480
ISBN-13 : 88
Item Weight : 2.31 pounds
Dimensions : 6 x 1 x 9 inches
Best Sellers Rank: #29,386 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #43 in Rock Band Biographies #44 in Traveler & Explorer Biographies #401 in Memoirs (Books)
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Top Amazon Reviews
Format: Paperback
Peart, N. (2002). Ghost Rider: Travels on the healing road. ECW Press. Neil Peart was a drummer, percussionist, and lyricist of the rock band Rush. He was also a traveler and writer. August 20, 1998, standing in his Quebec home, Peart begins with breakfast accompanied by a heavy rain. Following breakfast, Peart took off for Haines Alaska riding his BMW R1100-RS motorcycle. Ghost Rider refers to a post card depicting a cloud trailing off the peak of a mountain representing which upon viewing he acknowledged his feelings of alienation, disintegration, and disengagement. One year prior, his daughter had died in a car accident, then his wife died from cancer. He reflected, "I had tried the Hermit mode, now it was time to try the Gypsy mode." Filled with reflective prose, travelogue, and letters to friends - this book describes his 4 months, 28,750 miles of travels across Canada, the western United States, Baja, Mexico, and Belize. Resultant from his grief, Peart observed his lack of "enthusiasm, of getting fired up about doing a particular thing. . . . it used to be so easy and automatic to summon that dedication." While traveling alone, Peart said "I often found myself tracing, and even searching out, the ghostly footsteps of deceased writers" such as Hemingway, Jack London, Mark Twain, Ezra Pound, Edward Abbey, Sinclair Lewis, Wallace Stegner, Willa Cather, Mary Austin, Ernie Pyle, Jack Kerouac, Truman Capote, B. Travern, and Malcolm Lowry. He liberally quotes from books he read along the way and Rush lyrics. Somehow, the journey created a healing space, "it wasn't the looking that mattered, it was the moving." There were times reading this when Peart's grief was palpable. He made a good point about the healing power of movement in the midst of raw pain, adding a sense that you're really not standing still in the face of loss. A beautiful memoir, and a terrific travelogue. Books referenced by Peart Aldo Leopold's Sand Country Almanac Alex Shoumatoff African Madness B. Traven Treasure in the Sierra Madre Barry Lopez Desert Notes/River Notes Birds of Mexico Black Sun Bruce Chatwin In Patagonia Charles Frazier Cold Mountain Clement Salvadori - Motorcycle Adventures in Baja Comac McCarthy The Orchard Keeper David Guterson Snow Falling on Cedars David James Duncan The Brothers K David James Duncan The River Why David Malouf Remembering Babylon Desert Anarchist Desert | The Anarchist Library Douglas How Night of the Caribou Edward Abbey Best of Edward Abbey Edward Abbey The Brave Cowboy Edward Abbey Desert Solitaire Edward Abbey The Monkey Wrench Gang Ernest Hemingway Islands in the Stream Ernest Hemingway The Sun Also Rises George Eliot The Mill on the Floss Graham Greene The Lawless Roads Herman Melville Moby Dick Hunter S. Thompson Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas Hunter S. Thompson Hell Angels Ian Frazier Great Plains Jack London Son of the Wolf Jack London Martin Eden Jack London The Call of the Wild Jack London The Sea Wolf Jack London The Very Richness of That Past Jack London White Fang Jerome K. Jerome Three Men in a Boat John Steinbeck The Grapes of Wrath Jonny Bealby For a Pagan Song Jonny Bealby Running with the Moon Joseph Conrad Keith Moon biography Lesley Choyce The Republic of Nothing Leslie Choyce World Enough Marc Reisner Cadillac Desert Mark Twain Roughing It Maya Angelous I know Why the Caged Bird Sings Melissa Holbrook Pierson The Perfect Vehicle Nadine Gordimer The Conservationist Nelson Algre Nigel Pennick The Pagan Book of Days Patrick O'Flaherty Peter Wild A Desert Reader Plants and Trees of Baja California Saul Bellow Henderson the Rain King Saul Bellow Herzog Saul Bellow The Adventures of Augie March Stephen Gould Wonderful Life TC Boyle Tim Cahill Road Fever Tim O'Brien Tomcat in Love Truman Capote In Cold Blood Wallace Stegner Beyond the Hundredth Meridian Wallace Stegner The Spectator Bird Wallace Stegner Wolf Willow
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Reviewed in the United States on March 3, 2025 by Alicia Crumpton Alicia Crumpton
Format: Hardcover
Great book by the incredible Mr. Neil Peart. His grief had overcome him when he lost his young daughter who was on her way back to school and died in a single-car accident. The effect on his wife was devastating as she went into a severe depression and soon diagnosed with metastatic cancer and died within 10 months of their daughter's death. This is the story of Mr. Peart's journey through the grieving process and very well told throughout long motorcycle journey. He is so very well-read and it translates to his writing while on the road throughout the Americas (Canada, North America, South America). Another legend lost to glioblastoma which also claimed his brother Danny's life in March of 2025.
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Reviewed in the United States on April 6, 2025 by Hemedude
Format: Kindle
Not speaking as a Rush fan (I am), but as a person who also dealt with grieving painful, private losses, this struck home seeing the inner journey as well as the emotional trek of entering the worst period of a man’s life to finding light at the end of it.
Reviewed in the United States on April 7, 2025 by Milius
Format: Paperback
As a faithful fan of the Canadian rock-trio Rush since 1976, I had read about the heart breaking double tragedy in drummer Neil Peart's personal life: first the death of his daughter in a car accident, followed by that of his wife to cancer eight months later. Driving home from a recent Rush concert, I felt it was time to delve into Peart's writings, beginning appropriately with _Ghost Rider: Travels of the Healing Road_. Constantly surrounded at home by memories of his beloved wife and daughter, while consumed in his misery, loss and anguish, Peart, an empty shell of a man with no will to continue living realized he would die from the ravages of depression, if he did not keep moving "Book One" recounts Peart's motorcycle journey of healing through some of North America's most remote, rugged and majestically beautiful National Parks. Like many of his literary heroes, Peart set off with a writer's eye and journal in hand. When not riding, Peart hiked forest trails, rowed on mountain lakes, anything to keep moving. Peart finds wonder in nature, its beauty, and is a knowledgeable bird watcher. Along the way, he investigates local used book stores, museums and the stomping grounds of some his favorite American authors. Peart often digresses and recounts the history of a little known piece of Americana and the people who laid claim to a piece of it. Although a self-professed "saddle tramp," Peart eats at the top of the food chain, and his efforts to satisfy his Champaign tastes (described in minute detail) on beer menus is sometimes comical. It soon becomes apparent that, despite his grieving heart, Peart is a loner, by nature, comfortable in his solitude. Yet, Peart the loner battles loneliness, especially at meal times or in crowded familial settings. Happy to sit alone in a darkened corner, he eats and vents to his journal about overweight tourists with "mullet" hair cuts, name tag wearing conventioneers, or "Califoricators." When he goes as far as to label people "low lifes," however, Mr. Peart apparently has forgotten that this social strata could easily buy Rush CDs and concert tickets too. Always polite (after all Peart is Canadian), he does not warm up to people easily, nor does he choose friends readily. When he does form friendships, they tend to be lifelong: his band mates, his wife's relations, and his best friend and riding pal Brutus. After hearing that Brutus was incarcerated for illegal dealings in medicinal-herbal trade, Peart discovers a renewed purpose in the form of describing it through letters to Brutus in jail. "Book Two" finds Peart in a winter hiatus at home, after a brief but unsuccessful relationship with a woman in California. Here, motorcycle treks are replaced by snowshoes and cross-country skies as Peart re-explores his snow covered winter soulscape, and intimates the process of his healing through more letters to colleagues and friends. Although at times repetitive, Peart's letters are often more personal and revealing; less formal, and more soul bearing than his narrative. Skimming over these letters, one risks missing some of Peart's most insightful self-analysis. Yet, several of the letters to Brutus containing nothing more than adolescent banter and coded insider jokes certainly should have been chopped. It is said that wisdom is attained through pain. Neil Peart, through grief, and in spite of himself, has gained a wisdom some of us may never hope to grasp. The ancient Chinese general Sun Tzu wrote: "Know yourself, then know others, and you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles." Peart not only possesses the self-honesty to know himself, his human foibles, and character defects, but also came to identify the ghosts and demons that taunt a grieving soul on a daily basis. The more tangible aspects of the book contain a few flaws, though. Travel narratives offer unique challenges to a writer. Anyone who has attempted to put pen to paper soon realizes that everything surrounding them is called something. Peart's numerous descriptions of flora and fauna, and efforts to research afford the reader the joy of watching a writer in the process of developing his craft. Redundancy is another challenge. Keeping thousands of miles of roads, highways, rivers, valleys, mountains, forests, and Best Western Hotels fresh on every page is a daunting task indeed. The combination of Peart's narrative, journal entries, and too many letters to Brutus, needless to say, created overlap that unfortunately escaped an editor's keen eye. It seems Peart is enamored with the Shift-I keys. Peart's more than generous sprinkling of italicized words, is quite distracting. After a few hundred pages, Peart's final chapters and epilog take a steep nose dive. One can almost hear Peart's publisher saying, "I need that manuscript tomorrow!" Though bound handsomely the book contains some needless flair. Each new chapter shows an artsy black and white photograph of Peart's riderless BMW motorcycle, pointed down a different stretch of scenic, yet lonely North American highway. Peart hints at having taken hundreds of photos on his journey, yet not one (other than the chapter photos mentioned above) appears in the book. A photo section offering views into Peart's family life before, and during his healing journey would have been a joy. Likewise, Journal passages headed with a facsimile of Peart's handwriting, only offers more needless attempts at flair. For map lovers, the absence of a simple rudimentary map outlining Peart's route will surely disappoint. At the risk of appearing fragmented, this book offers much to a varied audience. Lack of smoother flow and tighter ending is perhaps more the fault of a keen editor than the author's. Yet the joy of watching Neil Peart grow both emotionally and literally makes Ghosts a must read, whether you are a Rush fan or not.
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Reviewed in the United States on August 27, 2008 by Gregory Canellis