Kite Strings of the Southern Cross: A Woman's Travel Odyssey

Laurie Gough displays rare insight and profound wisdom as she evokes the timeless magic of the tropics and the lure of the open road in her debut book, Kite Strings of the Southern Cross: A Woman's Travel Odyssey, (Travelers' Tales, February 1999). From her gypsy home on a remote beach in Fiji she spins tales of her travels in Bali, Malaysia, New Zealand, Italy, Morocco, and North America, masterfully filling her canvas with verbal textures and sweeping the reader along on her journeys.

Exhibiting formidable powers of observation, Gough records her forays into foreign lands and the mysterious terrain of the human heart with a subtle wit, a lyrical turn of phrase and a remarkably open mind. In Fiji she falls in love with Laudi, a local who draws her into his world. Here she witnesses gossiping, good-natured aunts who provide for the family, evil Uncle Vix who constantly causes mayhem for the men of the island, and her own frustrations with a culture she cannot completely understand.

Armed with courage and her compulsion to travel, she continues her adventures and encounters both the bright and dark sides of human nature along the way. While visiting the labyrinthine city of Fez in Morocco, she is lured into an ancient scam by a carpet salesman but surprisingly turns the tables on him. In Malaysia, she fends off the devil himself in the guise of a Penang taxi driver. On the back of biker Clarence McQuiggle's motorcycle, she zooms through the western U.S. and the entire length of Canada faster than the speed of light-with hardly a moment to admire the beautiful landscape.

Laurie Gough is the epitome of a traveler with "pluck," who doesn't shrink from the rigors, lessons, or dangers of the pilgrim's road, but embraces them with enthusiasm and humor.

About the Author:
Laurie Gough's occupations and travels have varied dramatically. At seventeen she moved from Canada to Colorado to waitress and work in gas stations across the American Southwest before attending the University of Guelph, Ontario, where she earned a degree in international development. She worked her way across Europe, traveled to North Africa, Jamaica, the Yukon and Northwest Territories, the South Pacific, Southeast Asia, and South Korea. She spent a year teaching in a northern native reserve and two years living in a cabin in the woods of northern Ontario. Today she lives in Guelph, Ontario, but plans to move to northern California, where nature is big, majestic, and doesn't include winter. Her work has appeared in national newspapers, magazines, and in Travelers' Tales: A Woman's World, which won the Lowell Thomas Gold Award for Best Travel Book.

Kite Strings of the Southern Cross: A Woman's Travel Odyssey
by Laurie Gough
ISBN: 1-885211-30-9
$24.00, 350 pages, Hardcover
Publication Date: February, 1999