Westward Women
Set in 1973 during the Vietnam War, Westward Women combines historical, dystopian, and road trip fiction. A mysterious virus is affecting young women who, compelled by the infection, abandon their homes, head to the Pacific Ocean, and vanish. A man known as the Piper has appointed himself to pick up women and drive them west, but his motives are obscure.
Aimee, a college graduate, is looking for the Piper in the hope of finding her missing friend. Eve, a journalist, is on his trail because she wants to write a story about him and revive her flagging career. Teenie, troubled by the disappearance of her sister many years ago and now infected, is already on his bus.
What starts as an intriguing premiss becomes unsatisfyingly vague as the novel progresses. The virus is never explained, there’s no sense of its progress, no sense that it even exists. Perhaps it should be read as an allegory or metaphor: It’s the sort of question which might appeal to book groups. In spite of their varied back stories, the characters become indistinguishable. The denouement is predictable, and the ending relies on absurd coincidences that undermine the credibility of the story.
However, historical detail is nicely evoked: bell bottoms, bazooka gum, Janis Joplin. It is a boldly feminist tale, raising issues such as bodily autonomy in prose that is sensuous, even visceral. The sense of smell in particular is vivid: sweat, patchouli, smoke. It is told in multiple viewpoints in first, second and third person and using past and present tenses, and these technical elements are well handled. The imagery is striking, such as multiple references to skin splitting or cutting. Westward Women has a poetic, dream-like quality which will appeal to readers who enjoy a novel that is more atmospheric than plot-driven.
