Showing results by author "Michael Zadoorian" in All Categories

In Michael Zadoorian's The Leisure Seeker the Robinas have shared a wonderful life for more than 60 years. Now in their 80s, 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.

Danny Yzemski is a husky, pop-radio-loving loner balancing a dysfunctional home life with the sudden harsh realities of freshman year at a high school marked by racial turbulence. He finds refuge through bonding sessions with his father - listening to records on their brand new hi-fi and taking in his advice on dealing with bullies and driving a car with authority. But when Danny's father passes away suddenly, he's left alone to deal with his mother, a fragile woman who's angry at the loss of her husband and the increasingly seismic cultural shifts in the world.

Joe Keen and Ana Urbanek have been a couple for a long time, with all the requisite lulls and temptations, yet they remain unmarried and without children or a mortgage, as their Midwestern values (and parents) seem to require. Now on the cusp of 40, they are both working jobs that they're not even sure they believe in anymore, but with significantly varying returns. Ana is successful; Joe is floundering; both are in limbo, caught somewhere between mainstream and alternative culture, sincerity and irony, achievement and arrested development.

Ella and John have shared a wonderful life for more than 60 years. Now they're on the run from their doctors and middle-aged children, who just want them to go gently into that undignified night of old age. In their trusty camper van, the pair embark on a forbidden vacation of rediscovery along Route 66. Though time is catching up with them, Ella is determined that together they'll make it to their final destination for one more carefree day together, even if it is their last.

Ella macht sich nichts vor. Sie ist schwer krank und ihr Mann John zu senil, um zu wissen, welchen Tag wir heute haben. Ob es eine gute Idee ist, sich mit über achtzig in ein Wohnmobil zu setzen und über die Route 66 nach Disneyland zu türmen? Natürlich nicht. Doch soll es das tatsächlich schon gewesen sein mit dem Leben? Ella ist die Wächterin der Erinnerungen und der Straßenkarten. Und sie werden losfahren - auch wenn sie nicht weiß, ob die Reise sie ans Ziel oder vielleicht doch ans Vergessen führt.