"[Chris Benjamin] skillfully recreates conversations in his memoir, capturing people’s voices, opinions and thoughts. He writes of the oddities of organic food production, walking through the aftermath of a massive, clear-cut forest, and artist hippie communes."--Allison Lawlor, The Chronicle Herald"Just as Mark Vonnegut’s memoir, The Eden Express, provides the atmosphere of the early 1970s, post-Sixties haze, Benjamin’s book is swollen with the atmosphere of the early days of the millennium.”--Michael Bryson, Atlantic Books Today and The Miramichi Reader"...original in tone - droll, serious, and loving, of the world, and its wacky and wonderful people - and expansive in subject matter."--Marjorie Simmins, memoirist and author of Memoir: Conversations and Craft"Chasing Paradise is a great book! So much momentum in the prose. Chris took terrific notes on his journey; the conversations with the men and women who picked him up are so vivid. Stories about his wife working with children in Nicaragua are unforgettable. Chris lives and loves deeply."--Carole Langille, author of Doing Time and I Am What I Am Because You Are What You AreIn May, 2001, Chris Benjamin hitchhiked across Canada and volunteered on organic farms in British Columbia. He was in search of a good home, love and community, and perhaps a source of income to pay off his student loans.In Northern Ontario, Benjamin writes, “Big Al was my first encounter with what turned out to be a hitchhiking trope, the kind and generous – to his own kind at least – racist.”The trope got worse after September 11, which happened as Benjamin was leaving Prince Rupert, BC, hitching south toward the USA. This memoir is based on the detailed journals he kept at that time, hitching and Greyhounding his way across Canada and the USA, winding up in the Louisiana State Penitentiary. The journals consisted mainly of what people said to him: those who picked him up and the bus riders he encountered – including soldiers and kids fresh from jail.
