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Title: The House on Via Gombito: Writing by American Women Abroad by Madelon Sprengnether, C. W. Truesdale ISBN: 0-89823-182-5 Publisher: New Rivers Press Pub. Date: November, 1997 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $19.95

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Average Customer Rating: 3 (3 reviews)

Rating: 3
Summary: Dense, varied, uneven
Comment: This book is a collection of writings about travel, some fiction, some nonfiction, by women. The only thing that the writings have in common is that many of the authors seem to have some connection with Minnesota. A few of the writings, such as Sarah Streed's Moroccan Memoir are extremely engaging. Others attempt to be poetry in prose and are quite cryptic. The fiction is mixed in with the nonfiction, and this can be a little annoying since the reader is not quite sure what is real and what is not real. Most of the writings are new and original, but some are excerpts from longer works; this is especially the case with the fiction entries. Short biographical blurbs about the authors are provided at the end of the book; it would have been more helpful to read them together with each author's essay or excerpt. With its 500 dense pages, the book is quite long and overbearing, and it includes a lot of material that isn't that well written or interesting. The editors would have been better to use a heavier hand in selecting the best of the material that was submitted to them. But since they didn't, all the writings are there, and the reader is free to pick and choose which selections to read.

Rating: 4
Summary: One thousand times better
Comment: One thousand times better than Travelers Tales, A Woman's World, in my opinion, because of the more refined perceptions of the writers, and their explorations of both geographical and emotional landscapes. Michelle Dominique Leigh's, The Blue-Green Seas of Forever, is one of the most original travel essays I've ever read.

Rating: 2
Summary: Not as good as Traveler's Tales: A Woman's World
Comment: I was quite disappointed with this book, after only reading a small handful of the essays. I found what essays I read to be overly introverted and psychological in tone. None seemed to deal with actual travel activities -- what the women saw, how they experienced a different culture, etc.Not that the writing itself is particularly bad; rather, I got the sense that the foreign country was mere background for the writer's angst. A closer look at the subtitle of the book corroborates my assertion: "writing by American women abroad". So, sit in France and write about your loneliness or personal obsessions -- and then it can be included in a so-called travelogue like this one.If you're hankering for the road, you'd be better off reading Marybeth Bond's "Traveler's Tales: A Woman's World". Or even Thalia Zepatos' "A Journey of One's Own", which includes her own travel essays.