The Girl in the Road: A Novel

paperback, 352 pages

Published Feb. 17, 2015 by Broadway Books.

ISBN:
978-0-8041-3886-4
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5 stars (2 reviews)

A debut that Neil Gaiman calls “Glorious. . . . So sharp, so focused and so human.” The Girl in the Road describes a future that is culturally lush and emotionally wrenching.

Monica Byrne bursts on to the literary scene with an extraordinary vision of the future. In a world where global power has shifted east and revolution is brewing, two women embark on vastly different journeys—each harrowing and urgent and wholly unexpected.

When Meena finds snakebites on her chest, her worst fears are realized: someone is after her and she must flee India. As she plots her exit, she learns of the Trail, an energy-harvesting bridge spanning the Arabian Sea that has become a refuge for itinerant vagabonds and loners on the run. This is her salvation. Slipping out in the cover of night, with a knapsack full of supplies including a pozit GPS, a scroll reader, and a …

2 editions

Unforgettable Afro-Indian road story

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(em português → sol2070.in/2024/03/livro-girl-in-the-road/ )

As the title of Monica Byrne's "The Girl In The Road" (2015) suggests, it's a road journey -- one of my favourite genres. But it's something unforgettably different.

In the year 2068, a young Indian girl crosses an ocean, walking thousands of kilometres across a bridge that captures energy from the ocean waves, from India to Africa. In a parallel story, a child escapes her home by crossing Africa to Ethiopia.

In this future, devastated by climate change, India has become a dominant power and the African continent is cooking revolutionaries. It's a relief to be immersed in a story totally outside the current dominant cultural axis (even though the author is from USA).

The first-person narrative throws you inside the characters.

The main themes are: multiculturalism, transgenerational disorder, post-collapse societies, female power, mythological and spiritual dimensions of existence.

I came across this book because …

A tale of slavery, sexual violence, and prejudice set in the nearish future.

5 stars

This was Monica Byrne's debut novel and wow! She doesn't screw around!

This is the gripping tale of a climate-tipping-point future where India has much more economic clout in the world, and is expanding its power and influence (with China) into Africa. Among many interesting technologies that have been developed, a huge wave-energy power generator has been constructed from India to Africa, consisting of a long chain of floating inverted pyramids, each about a metre square, which form a road between continents; the 'Trail'. Although it's illegal to walk on, travellers do it anyway.

Meena is one such traveller, who is fleeing something in India, although we don't know the details, only that she's got snake bites on her chest, she's fled her home, and is totally paranoid about being followed.

We learn that she's an orphan raised by the parents of her doctor father, who was brutally murdered, along …