Solo

The author of bestsellers Wasted and Madness returns with a memoir about living alone on the highway, and observing and experiencing America at a pivotal moment in our history

In June of 2022, Marya Hornbacher was at a crossroads. Appalled by the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade, but also reeling from two years with an abusive partner, she abandoned her belongings, left her old life behind, and struck out into America in a Ram truck pulling a 16-foot Scamp trailer. The road (and the Scamp) have been her home ever since.

Her journey has been fraught, beautiful, dangerous, revelatory—a woman alone traveling through a divided country in which fully half of its citizens don’t believe in her right to control her own destiny. Along the way, the people with whom she shares the road shed light on the dramatic shifts—political, economic, social—that are transforming American life and culture. In truck stops, diners, campgrounds, and motels, Marya encounters threats and finds safe haven, meets with hostility and kindness, sees both heartbreak and hope. 

Solo is about the joys and struggles of a deliberately solo life; it’s also the portrait of a changing country whose own destiny seems less certain every day. By turns tender and violent, funny and shot through with glimmers of hope, it’s a remarkable story of American resilience and adventure.