Depending on your perspective, 1970 was either the beginning of a new decade or the final chapter of the old. In truth, it was both: the weary culmination of a tragic era in American history and the fragile first bloom of hope that a new generation might live differently—more grounded in what truly matters, less enslaved by possessions and status, and perhaps, if our best aspirations took root and grew, more humane than the lives of our parents and grandparents.
The small journal I kept during the 400-mile ride—from Anaheim to Redondo Beach and north along the Pacific Coast Highway—provided the bones of this account: dates, towns, encounters, moments etched in memory.
We were alike in many ways, the Big Sur coast and I—wounded, outwardly composed, yet carrying a deeper instability beneath the surface. As turmoil and relational upheaval had shaped me within my alcoholic family, tectonic forces had lifted the Santa Lucia Mountains from the edge of the continent, leaving the Big Sur coast steep, fractured, unstable, and beautiful in the severe way nature sometimes becomes beautiful—after pressure, violence, time, and the elements have left their mark.
— excerpt from The Coast of Mist and Spirits
We made our way upriver, following the trail until it ended. From there, we walked in the river bed itself, picking our way over boulders large and small.
After the long ride up the coast under the July sun, the Gorge appeared like something out of a dream. It was the perfect swimming hole—part oasis, part gathering place, the kind of spot you hoped to stumble upon and almost never did.
I noticed a makeshift raft tied to a tree along the bank and walked over to have a look. Carved into one of its small supporting logs was a blunt, three-word inscription telling the United States government exactly what it could do with its draft.
I smiled. Even though I supported the war, something about the plain defiance of it appealed to the rebel in me.
In the summer of 1970, with the Vietnam War raging and the nation torn by conflicts ranging from the draft to civil rights, Tom Gilbert and two friends embarked on a 375-plus mile bicycle journey from Southern California to Big Sur via the Pacific Coast Highway.
The Coast of Mist and Spirits is the author’s coming-of-age, creative non-fiction memoir that tells the story of that summer.
Deep in the Big Sur backcountry, events take a dark turn as the full effects of resentment, spite and spiritual forces which accumulated over the long miles of riding work their way into the story, resulting in a moral choice with a potentially disastrous outcome.
Echoing themes found in John Knowles’ semi-autobiographical novel A Separate Peace and Cheryl Strayed’s Wild, The Coast of Mist and Spirits traces an arc running through youthful idealism to failure, despair and cynicism before rounding up to grace, hope and redemption, ultimately serving as a metaphor for every generation.
Once upon a time, a land of mountains, trees, and water called my name, along with a slender shoulder of California highway that could take me there. Together, the land and the highway beckoned me north, beyond the boundaries of my habitual life, with a bouquet of promises: scented redwood groves, prehistoric rock formations bursting from the sea, anda canyon carved by an old, meandering stream.
So I found myself at nineteen, up among the redwoods and the river with several hundred hitchhikers and fellow wanderers, seeking peace, space, and some kind of meaning, trying to hold myself together with scraps of poetry, borrowed theology, and the fragments of a damaged soul.
The Coast of Mist and Spirits - Publication Notification
If you would like to be notified once Coast of Mist and Spirits is published, please provide your email address and we will notify you once the book is available.