Joyous freewheeling books about women who run away from it all
By: Mishana Khot
Tags: Books Recommendation, Book Review, Book Recommendations, Womens Literature, Reading

Lately it seems like there’s a glut of TV shows about troubled detectives dealing with their demons, and I’ve watched a lot of them (hello, Scandi Noir!). So many of them feature female victims who have gone for a walk or a hike and come to a grisly end at the hands of a psychopath.

I understand the appeal of writing a story with such stark contrast — youth and innocence meeting sinister darkness. But it bothered me to watch episode after episode of women being punished for just being free or exploring the world. So to set the balance right in my world, I’m making a list of books about women who run away and find all kinds of freedom.

Lolly Willowes, Sylvia Townsend Warner

Lolly Willowes is a single woman who lives with her father and takes care of the house for him. The book is set in the very early 1900s, when society didn’t know what to do with unmarried women and turned them into roles of family caretakers, maiden aunts, and governesses.

When her father dies, her brother’s family moves into the family home and Lolly Willowes spends years looking after his kids. If she feels restless, she represses it and soldiers on, until one day, in her late 40s, she announces that she’s moving into a damp cottage on the edge of the woods, far away from the city. Brushing off her brother’s huffing and puffing about of her virtue and her reputation, Lolly packs up and leaves.

It doesn’t take long to settle in and soon a cranky black kitten becomes her companion. Lolly begins to find real peace in the woods around her cottage, going for long walks, napping on carpets of leaves in shaded glens, eating when she likes, and wearing what she pleases. She falls in with a circle of locals who practice strange night-time rituals and becomes a witch, and the book ends with her meeting a Very Important Person (and no, it’s not Mr. Right).

Having studied literature and feminism, I know that concepts like witches and mad women are so loaded with social context, but I have always loved a witch story! This book (and Lolly) float along so easily, not getting up on any soapboxes to preach but doing exactly what they want — I really enjoyed the light touch that Sylvia Townsend Warner has.

Every page of this book is a love letter to nature, to nature, to the change of seasons and the fall of dusk. If your spirit thrills to misty mornings and rainy days, you’ll respond to the book in the same way.

Ladder of Years, Anne Tyler

Delia Grinstead goes on a beach holiday with her husband and kids and just walks away one day. She sets off in her beach slippers and cover-up and nobody knows where she’s going or why she went. She hitches a ride to a town some distance away and reinvents herself completely, even getting a job and renting a room. All the while, her husband and kids have called the police, run Missing ads in the paper, headed home from the vacation, but Delia doesn’t think about it.

What makes a dutiful wife and mother head off like this and leave her family panicking? A series of events takes place in the days before the beach holiday, but none of them are big enough to warrant a disappearance like this. This book is fascinating because it doesn’t really tell you exactly what she’s thinking when she starts walking.

As a reader, this is fun because while you and Delia know that her husband and kids are worried sick, you’re settling in with Delia into a comfortable new life in an anonymous town. We meet her new friends, see how she manages to get clothes and food and a job, and focus on how life unfolds for her. I don’t want to say any more in case I give away the ending so I’m going to stop here.

Tracks, Robyn Davidson

Robyn Davidson was your average 20-something living a regular urban life in the 1970s in Sydney, working and partying and living away from home. Almost on a whim, she decided to walk across 1700 miles of some of the harshest terrain in the world — the Australian desert.

Robyn quit her job and moved to dusty, dry Queensland where she spent two years working at a camel station so she can learn how to train and manage them. When she is ready and has earned enough to buy her own camels, she sets off on an eight month trek across the desert with only four camels and a dog by her side.

This is a land that is so dry and so inhospitable that camels are the only vehicle that can take a human being across. It is one of the last frontiers left and she endures it all. She survives the fiercest heat, sun-blistered skin, cold nights, the struggle for food and water, the poisonous desert creatures and a lot more.

Of course, when you venture into the last frontier, you are also rewarded by spectacular views that not many have seen. But apart from her evocative descriptions of the breath-taking landscape, some of the most beautiful parts of the book are the days she spends with Mr. Eddie, an older Aboriginal man who walks with her for some parts of her journey, and the evolving friendship (and on-and-off romance) with Rick Smolan, a photographer for National Geographic.

Robyn Davidson writes so evocatively about the timeless nothingness of the desert, about not meeting human beings for weeks, and of her search for loneliness and privacy. But what really stood out to me is how authentic she is as a writer. She isn’t looking for approval or softening her opinions or story to be politically correct. She is nasty sometimes, angry about the intrusion of people who are curious about her journey, and dismissive with questions about why she did it. The journey is something of a pilgrimage to her and she doesn’t want to see or hear what other people are saying about it.

This book has three things going for it — the fact that it’s a true story, that it was covered live by National Geographic in 1977 (check out the stunning photographs here), and that it was turned into a Hollywood movie starring Mia Wasikowska — but the story itself is just breath-taking.

Frenchman’s Creek, Daphne Du Maurier

Lady Dona St. Columb is intelligent, beautiful, and restless. She loves her children, tolerates her pompous husband, but is incredibly bored by her life in 17th century London. She longs to be alone and free of the restrictions and commitments of her social life. She takes her children and the nanny to the family home in Cornwall, citing the kids’ health as an excuse, and leaves her husband to enjoy his drunken parties in the city.

As she leaves the city behind and breathes in the fresh air and sea breeze of Cornwall, she begins to feel free again. For a while, she enjoys solitary rambles in nature, spending time with her children, and living by the schedule of her choosing. She discovers that William, the old housekeeper, is smart and funny, and he discovers that Dona isn’t just a social butterfly, and they become good pals.

Dona begins to hear rumours about pirates using the river near her property for hiding away, and then one day she stumbles upon a French pirate in the woods. Jean-Benoit sees her untameable spirit and her thirst for adventure, and she falls as much in love with him as his promise of a life on the seas.

The reader goes on a wildly satisfying escapade in which Dona wears trousers and pirate shirts, learns to live on a ship, cooks meals on campfires, takes part in a violent attack on another ship, and discovers love and passion with Jean-Benoit — all while maintaining the life of Lady Dona St. Columb, good wife and mother.

When her husband and his crew of friends (including Dona’s ex-lover who is bitter and vengeful) descend upon the house for a short stay, Dona must play the part of modest host who deplores the threat of outlaws and piracy. Things come to a head when the menfolk decide to go on a vigilante hunt and root out those damned pirates, but Daphne Du Maurier handles all the threads of this narrative expertly and brings it together in one big surprise climax.

One of my favourite features of Daphne Du Maurier’s writing is her ability to imbue the landscape or the property in which the story is set with so much personality. It becomes as important as the actual characters, just like Manderley in , or Jamaica Inn in Jamaica Inn. In Frenchman’s Creek, the quiet gardens of Navron House turn it into the retreat Dona needs. In the sunny lawns and shaded creek, she finds a gateway to the biggest adventure of her life.

On my To-Read list for books about runaway women is Where’d You Go, Bernadette? Do you have any more recommendations for me?

This post contains Amazon affiliate links and I may earn a small commission when you click on the links, at no extra cost to you.