The Vagabond Mother by Tracey Scott-Townsend

SPOTLIGHT ON:
The Vagabond Mother by Tracey Scott-Townsend. Published 10th January 2020 from Wild Pressed Books.

Not every Vagabond is a Castaway... 

Maya Galen’s oldest son, Jamie, left home eight years ago after a massive row with his parents and now Joe, her youngest child and apple of her eye, has cut off all contact with them too.

Called to Australia to identify the body of a young man, Maya is given her son’s journal. After a sleepless night she decides that the only thing she can do is follow in Joe’s footsteps and try to discover her most basic human self. 

Eschewing a monetary lifestyle, from now on she must rely on her physical and emotional strength to survive. Following Joe’s hand-drawn maps and journal entries, she travels from Australia to Denmark and beyond, meeting many other travellers along the way and learning valuable lessons.

Eventually a crisis forces her to return home and confront the end of her marriage, but also a new understanding of what family, in the widest sense, really means.

Exploring the big questions at the heart of human existence, The Vagabond Mother shares territory with books and films such as Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer, The Way, starring Martin Sheen, Wild: A Journey from Lost to Found by Cheryl Strayed and Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert.

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As part of the Blog Tour for The Vagabond Mother, it is my pleasure to share with you the following extract from this tale of one woman's search for meaning:

"She woke to the sound of voices by the stream. She stretched and climbed down from the sleeping-platform, a slight ache in her hip. Perhaps the day she’d be forced to return to ‘society’ would be when her body started to feel its age. Up to now she’d been lucky to escape arthritis and asthma and type-2 diabetes – conditions that had inhibited her mother’s lifestyle from her early fifties onwards.  Or maybe it was as much to do with state of mind as genetics. Perhaps the illnesses would have claimed her too, if she hadn’t got away from London. 

The air had cooled considerably but it wasn’t yet dark. She washed perfunctorily with the water she kept in a basin on the countertop and pulled on a long sweater, miles too big for her – that she’d gained from a clothes swap at the last hostel she was in. Rolled up the sleeves. She looked around for the dog but she must have left the shack a while ago – when Maya pressed the back of her hand to it she found the dog’s bedding had cooled. She felt her way out barefoot, knowing by now where the sharp stones were, and down the track to the main part of the commune. All the buildings on the land had been constructed by hand from recycled and natural materials. Valeria and a Danish boy were washing pans in the stream. ‘Hi, Maya,’ called Valeria, scrubbing vigorously with a scouring sponge woven from tough grasses. Her dark hair was twisted into a knot at the back of her neck. The way she does her hair reminds me of Daisy. The boy turned his head and offered Maya a grin. 

‘Are you on cooking rota tonight? We won’t be long with the rest of the pans.’ His blue eyes were honest and friendly. It was a family of sorts that Maya would be leaving behind but she’d made that kind of break before… 

The youngest member of the group was chopping wild garlic and onions on a felled tree-trunk by the path to the fire. Maya half-slid in a puddle created by a dripping pan, balanced on a grid of branches at the edge of the track. She laughed and smiled at the English boy as she held onto a branch for steadiness. Not for the first time she wondered if his mother knew where he was. But it wasn’t her business. Not all vagabonds are castaways, she recalled a conversation with a pair of young vloggers during a stop-over at a wild campsite after she left the Camino. They chided her for assuming they’d run away from their parents.

She’d been advised on arrival at the commune not to ask personal questions or try to take on any kind of motherly role. Everyone was equal in status, each a free spirit. The truth was she had taken more from these young people than she’d given them in return. They didn’t need looking after, only to be allowed to be. It hurt that she hadn’t understood this from raising her own children." 

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From the cover of The Vagabond Mother:

All Maya Galen wanted was a happy family, stifling her inner urges to explore the wider world for the sake of being there for her children. But parenting with her husband, Con, wasn’t always easy. Their eldest son, Jamie, broke off all contact some years ago and now Joe, the apple of her eye, has done the same after an argument with his parents about his chosen way of life. Maya and Con are left rattling around ‘The Cottages’ – their enormous home in a Lincolnshire village, wondering what they did wrong.

When they are called to Australia to identify the body of a young man, Maya is given her son’s journal. After a sleepless night she makes the decision to follow in her youngest son’s footsteps and become a vagabond, leaving her husband and daughters to return to the UK without her. From now on she needs to rely on her own physical and emotional strength.

Following Joe’s hand-drawn maps and journal entries, Maya travels from Australia to Denmark and beyond, meeting many young people like Joe along the way and trying to discover what it means to be alive. As months turn into years she can’t bear to go back to the oppression of her perfect home. Slowly, she comes to understand that what she is discovering is her most basic human self.

Another family crisis, involving one of her twin daughters, eventually forces Maya to return home. As she treads carefully through the wreckage of her marriage, unfinished business is tied up and the family once again becomes complete, but in a different way from before.

The Vagabond Mother is available to pre-order now from your favourite book retailer.

Amazon link: The Vagabond Mother by Tracey Scott-Townsend

About the author:

The Vagabond Mother is Tracey's sixth novel. 

Inspired largely by the travels of her four grown children, and her own resultant burgeoning sense of adventure. Together with her husband, Phil, and their two rescue dogs, she spends a lot of time travelling at home and in Europe in their camper van.

Her novels explore the pressing themes at the heart of human existence.Sense of place is also important, and each new novel reflects the locations she has recently travelled to.

Tracey is also an artist and a poet, and a grower of food on her allotment.