Alycia Ripley's debut novel "Traveling with an Eggplant explores a world where anything is possible and the implausible is the norm. Infused with a 1980's soundtrack, it is a meditation on wish fulfillment, destiny, and heroism while proving the age-old adage that you sometimes have to lose yourself before you can find anything.

Traveling with an Eggplant

By Alycia Ripley

Trafford Publishing (2005)

Reviewed by Danielle Feliciano for Reader Views (2/06)

In her stunning debut novel, Traveling with an Eggplant, author Alycia Ripley takes the reader on a wild ride through the life and mind of Alison Olson.  Alison finds herself revisiting her past, both literally and figuratively.  She finds herself haunting the remnants of her college life, aimlessly wandering around her old campus and apartment.  As she haunts her old life, her old life begins to haunt her. She lives with an onslaught of memories, as well as a hallucinatory soundtrack running through her head at random.  As she attempts to deal with her past, she struggles with the present; her tumultuous and maddening relationship with Seymour, her friendship with her best friend Tara, and her fight for respect and recognition at her job where she is one of a handful of females working in a male-dominated world.

The characters in this novel are so well developed, it is hard to forget they are not actual people.  The writing is so vivid and detailed that you can easily imagine yourself taking this journey with Alison.  When she begin hallucinating, your mind is right with hers as she dances the line between what is real and what is our imagination.  As you watch Alison deal with finding herself, finding her destiny, and commit an amazing act of heroism, you can’t help but cheer her on.  Your heart breaks with hers, but she gives you a reason to believe there is hope in midst of the chaos we call life.  In the end, you celebrate with her as she faces her demons and realizes that to move forward in life, you have to ultimately deal with your past.

Traveling with an Eggplant is a incredibly bizarre book, yet so beautifully written you are never confused about what is happening.  It takes you on a journey from the present to the past to the dream world and back again, but is written so smoothly that never once does the reader feel lost.   Alycia Ripley has done a splendid job of writing a novel that not only acts as an escape, but as a catalyst for examining our own lives.   Alison Olson is a character that we can all identify with, and can all admire for her strength and heroism.