A Travel Memoir About A Single Parent's Life

The Fourth Demand now available at these sites.
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First Runner-up for Eric Hoffer Award for Outstanding Work of Nonfiction

The Fourth Demand Now Available

Publisher's Description

Soon after Andy Solomon became the single parent of his 2-year-old son Marty he put the toddler on his motorcycle’s gas tank, and they became motorcycle men. This life lasted seven years until a near-fatal accident when Marty was nine made Andy promise he’d never again put his son on a motorcycle. But they missed riding terribly and formed a plan: when Marty graduated college they would get new motorcycles and tour the entire country. When Marty graduated, they did just that: five weeks, 26 states, and over 9000 miles from Florida to the Pacific and back.

This warm, perceptive account of that tour is on its surface a richly informative travel memoir, but at its heart it is the story of a devoted single parent raising his only child to adulthood and now letting him go.

This memoir is filled with closely observed descriptions of the America they see and the colorful history of the places they travel. Laced between these vivid pictures, in the rhythm of a touring rider’s mind, are astute reflections on the nature of the man he’s raised, the forces that formed a boy whose mother was largely absent, what it takes to be a good parent, and how Andy has succeeded and failed in that role, as well as English professor Solomon’s thoughts on American college life today and what it takes to function in the contemporary academic world.

Reader Comments

Great holiday gift with wide-open appeal!,

September 2, 2013

By
Metuchen Girl

This review is for: The Fourth Demand: The Story of a Father and Son Journey (Kindle Edition)

Weekend biker Andy Solomon takes us on several tours that will touch the hearts of everyone on your list: single dads; misunderstood Hell's Angels; college professors clinging to integrity; young people leaving home for the first time; and sports fans. You will lean into Solomon's wit and bask in his cross-country scenes, while delighting in a Pittburgh-born impression of folks he meets along the way.

Publishers Weekly

Seven years after biker and English professor Solomon (Partners) became a divorced single parent, he took his young son, Marty, for one of their customary motorcycle rides—but this time, the ride ended in a near-fatal accident.

After the crash, Solomon vowed not to ride with Marty again until he graduated from college, when they would take a cross-country trip together. Upon Marty's graduation, that is exactly what they did.

Here, Solomon reflects on parenthood, the kind of man his son has become, the kind of man he thought he would become, and the process of letting go of one's children. Solomon weaves his reflections into tales of the road and thoughts on literature. He's an excellent writer—his command of language and his familiarity with the classics is evident on every page. Solomon has a thoughtful, deliberate style, and readers who love language will find his writing resonant.

He ably evokes the countryside and skillfully renders the highs and lows of parenting. By the book's end, readers will find themselves holding their family close and planning a trip across the country.

Amazon

"As an outer journey across America on motorcycles with his 20-something son Andy Solomon celebrates the marvel of the ordinary, the bonds formed by contemporary culture, music, sports, travel, food. As an inner journey, he revisits the events which simultaneously bind and separate him from the son he has raised as a single parent, concluding that he must now let this son go to undertake his own journey. On both levels the journey is packed with insight and humor, one any reader will be glad to have shared."

-Francis Gillen

Reader Comments

Partners, a novel from Andy Solomon, is a sweeping story of falling in love, falling out of love, and finding that parenthood can change one’s understanding of love forever. . . .

One of my favorite aspects of Partners is the way Solomon incorporates Mark’s love of Shakespeare into his passion for painting. The integration of Shakespeare’s work and the careful details about both oil and watercolor painting add depth to the story without interrupting the flow of the narrative. Solomon did a wonderful job of delving into the mind of a creative academic, one who is able to dissect the motivation of his students and his art while remaining somewhat oblivious to the emotional storms brewing in his own relationships.

At its heart, Partners is a novel about parenting as a single father after divorce, and Solomon’s scenes with Mark and his son Ben strike the authentic, emotional balance between sentimentality and sincerity. Many of the novels I read are told from the feminine point of view, and it was really refreshing to get inside Mark’s head for this journey. While some of his parenting choices made me cringe — toddlers and motorcycles, oh my — Mark’s love for Ben is so absolutely encompassing that his choices felt authentic and the emotional journey of the story felt authentic.

Partners will appeal to many readers because of the contemporary feel of the story and the ability of so many readers to relate to the journey of single parenthood, whether they’re living it themselves or watching it unfold in the life of someone they love. . . . I . . . found myself completely invested in the characters and their story.

Angela Amman
(complete review at: http://www.angelaamman.com/2013/05/partners-a-review.html)

Selected Shorter Pieces

Vanish Away Like Smoke

Mr. Aronson locked his hands behind his back and paced in front of our seventh grade Sunday school class. "Und sooooooo..." he droned, "Ve haf efry reason to belief dat Columbus vas a Jew."

I paused in the sketch I was drawing of a new 1957 Ford Thunderbird and glanced around the musty classroom. The other students, like me, were all within months, one side or the other, of their twelfth birthdays. Their eyes spoke an interest I could not believe was real. It was Sunday, 11:00 AM, and like me they must have wanted to be somewhere else, anywhere but there. I put the rubbery-tasting eraser end of my pencil in my mouth and gazed around at the girls' chests to see if any needed a larger bra than the last time I'd looked, a half-hour before.

I never much minded that week after week I sat sweating in this overheated room, listening to what seemed myths, wishes, legends, and lies related as fact. I minded only that their truth seemed so damned important to Mr. Aronson, the bald teacher with the grating voice. The World War had ended the year I was born, and I had been told to accept on faith that a German Jew like Aronson had suffered in a way I could never understand, told by my father, to whom the lies seemed equally crucial, who had said often that he too had suffered, been denied that job, that neighborhood, because his name was Solomon.....

Click the link to Vanish Away Like Smoke to continue reading.